Type in what actually lands in your account each month. See exactly what goes to needs, wants, and savings and debt.
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The classic split. Half to needs, a third to wants, a fifth to savings and debt.
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This calculator gives a simplified illustration, not financial advice.
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Needs are the things you would still have to pay if your income dropped: rent or mortgage, utilities, council tax, food you cook at home, insurance, transport to work, minimum debt payments. Wants are everything that makes life nicer but could pause for a month: eating out, subscriptions, hobbies, holidays, the upgraded phone. The honest test is whether missing a payment would cause a real problem.
That is extremely common in expensive cities, and it does not mean the method is useless. Switch the toggle to 60/20/20, which gives needs a bigger share and squeezes wants rather than savings. The point of the split is to protect the savings line, so if something has to give, let it be the wants.
Take-home, the amount that actually lands in your account after tax, national insurance and pension. Budgeting from gross pay is the most common reason a split looks fine on paper and fails in practice.
No, and it is not meant to be. It is a starting shape that gets you budgeting in about five minutes instead of building categories from scratch. Once you have run it for a couple of months you will know which line is wrong for your life, and you should move the percentages to match.
Read the method in full: the 50/30/20 rule, explained.