Read Your Month at a Glance With a Simple Income and Expense List

Most people know roughly what they earn and roughly what rent costs. What they cannot say off the top of their head is whether the month ends with money left or a gap. That answer needs every income source and every expense next to each other, added up, and compared.

Monthly Budget Planner does that in one screen. Income goes in a list on the left, expenses and savings in a list on the right, and three totals below show total income, expenses and what is left over, which turns into a shortfall if you overspend. Change any number and the result moves immediately, so you can test a decision before you make it.

The clip below shows income and expenses being entered and the totals updating.

The starting budget and what it shows

The planner opens with example figures so you can see how it behaves. Income has one line, Salary at 3,500. The expense list has seven lines: Rent / Mortgage 1,200, Groceries 400, Utilities 150, Transportation 200, Insurance 150, Subscriptions 50 and Savings 300. Each expense carries a Need, Want or Savings tag in a drop-down, and a small bar beside it shows its share of income.

Savings is kept apart from spending. The Expenses card counts only needs and wants: 1,200 + 400 + 150 + 200 + 150 = 2,100 for needs, plus 50 for the one want, makes 2,150. A line under the cards reports Saved 300 and Left over 1,050, because 3,500 - 2,150 - 300 = 1,050. Your real cushion is the 300 you saved plus the 1,050 not yet assigned, which is 1,350, or about 39 percent of income.

The 50/30/20 view

Below the totals sits a 50/30/20 view, a common rule of thumb that suggests about half of income for needs, 30 percent for wants and 20 percent for savings. Against the starting budget it shows needs at 60.0 percent (2,100 of 3,500), wants at 1.4 percent (50) and savings at 8.6 percent (300). Needs run above the 50 target and savings fall short of the 20 target, so those two bars turn red. An Unallocated line shows the 1,050, or 30.0 percent of income, that has no job yet.

Treat the targets as a conversation starter, not a verdict. Twenty percent of 3,500 is 700, so moving 400 of the unallocated 1,050 into savings would meet it exactly. If rent alone is a third of your pay, the 50 percent needs target may not be realistic where you live, and the tags still show you where the money goes.

Step by step: build your own month

1. Rename the Salary line to match your actual paycheck, and type the take-home amount, not the gross figure. If you are unsure of it, Paycheck Calculator estimates what lands in your account.
2. Press Add Income for every other source: side work, rent from a tenant, child support, a regular transfer. Rename each so you remember what it was.
3. Replace the example expenses with your own. Name fields are editable text, so change "Subscriptions" to "Streaming and apps" if that is clearer.
4. Press Add Expense for anything missing, such as childcare, medical, phone, pets or debt payments. Each new row starts at 0 under the name New Expense, tagged as a Need.
5. Set the tag on every row to Need, Want or Savings, so the 50/30/20 view and the Saved line are right. Retirement or emergency-fund contributions belong under Savings.
6. Use the bin icon at the end of a row to remove a category you do not have.
7. Read the three cards and the Saved and Left over line. The last card changes its label to Shortfall and turns red when you spend and save more than you earn.
8. Adjust and re-read. Cut a number, raise another, and watch the left-over figure and the bars change.

Amounts accept entries such as 1,200 or $400. A field that is not a number turns red and the totals show a dash until you fix it, so a bad entry is never counted as 0 without telling you.

When a surprise bill arrives

Suppose a dental bill of 1,200 lands in the same month. Press Add Expense, rename it Dental work and enter 1,200. Spending rises from 2,150 to 3,350. With 300 still going to savings, left over is 3,500 - 3,350 - 300 = -150, so the last card reads a shortfall of 150 in red.

The planner does not decide what to do about the gap, but it makes the choices concrete. Pausing the 300 Savings line for one month turns the 150 shortfall into 150 left over, because 3,500 - 3,350 = 150. Trimming Subscriptions from 50 to 0 and Groceries from 400 to 350 would cover only 100 of it. Seeing the figures side by side is what lets you pick the least painful option rather than the first one that comes to mind.

If the bill is better spread out, put the repayment into the month through Loan Calculator first, then enter just the monthly payment as the expense.

A tighter month with a second income

Now the opposite case. A part-time contract adds 400 a month. Press Add Income, name it Contract work and enter 400. Total income becomes 3,900. Keeping the original expenses and savings, left over grows from 1,050 to 1,450.

A more useful move is to decide, before the money arrives, where the extra 400 goes. Put 250 into the Savings line, making it 550, and 150 into Groceries, making it 550. Spending is now 2,300 and savings 550, so 3,900 - 2,300 - 550 leaves 1,050, the same as before but with a larger savings line and a better-fed pantry. The 50/30/20 view now shows needs at 57.7 percent, wants at 1.3 percent and savings at 14.1 percent. Assigning new income on purpose is how a raise avoids vanishing.

Common mistakes

• Using gross pay. Taxes and deductions are not available to spend, so the left-over figure looks better than it is.
• Leaving out irregular costs such as annual insurance, car registration and gifts. Divide the yearly amount by 12 and add a monthly line.
• Entering a weekly cost as a monthly one. A 90 weekly grocery shop is about 390 a month (90 x 52 / 12), not 90.
• Tagging a savings contribution as a Need or Want. It then counts as spending, and the Saved line and the 20 percent target both look worse than they are.
• Setting the budget once and never revisiting it. Check it whenever a bill, a rent figure or a paycheck changes.

Keep the plan honest over time

A plan is only as good as the numbers behind it. Compare it with what you really spent by logging purchases in Expense Tracker, and bring the grocery line down with a list made in Grocery List Planner. Other household tools live in the household tools category.

The planner keeps your entries for the current visit only, and everything runs in your browser. To keep a month, press Export CSV, which saves every line with its category and share of income as monthly-budget.csv. Reset to sample and Clear all rows both ask you to confirm and offer an Undo. Monthly Budget Planner is a Premium Application, so you get 2 trial uses a day, then a $3 day pass or a $9.99 monthly plan. Reading your totals costs nothing; copying, printing or saving the result, including the CSV, uses one trial use per visit.

Open Monthly Budget Planner and enter your own month. Which expense category do you find hardest to estimate, and should the next post tackle it? Let us know on the contact page.