What Is The 50/30/20 Rule? | Budgeting Methods – HSBC UK (2024)

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What Is The 50/30/20 Rule? | Budgeting Methods – HSBC UK? ›

The idea is you'd aim to spend: 50% of your income on needs: essential living expenses, such as rent/mortgage, bills, food, and transport to work. 30% on wants: discretionary spending, such as eating out, shopping, trips and subscriptions.

Those will become part of your budget. The 50-30-20 rule recommends putting 50% of your money toward needs, 30% toward wants, and 20% toward savings. The savings category also includes money you will need to realize your future goals.

The idea is to divide your income into three categories, spending 50% on needs, 30% on wants, and 20% on savings. Learn more about the 50/30/20 budget rule and if it's right for you.

Our 50/30/20 calculator divides your take-home income into suggested spending in three categories: 50% of net pay for needs, 30% for wants and 20% for savings and debt repayment. Find out how this budgeting approach applies to your money.

Applying the 50/30/20 rule would give them a monthly budget of: 50% for mandatory expenses = $2,500. 20% to savings and debt repayment = $1,000. 30% for wants and discretionary spending = $1,500.

For many people, the 50/30/20 rule works extremely well—it provides significant room in your budget for discretionary spending while setting aside income to pay down debt and save. But the exact breakdown between “needs,” “wants” and savings may not be ideal for everyone.

Key Takeaways. The 50/30/20 budget rule states that you should spend up to 50% of your after-tax income on needs and obligations that you must have or must do. The remaining half should be split between savings and debt repayment (20%) and everything else that you might want (30%).

Remember, a need is an essential expense that you can't live without, such as rent. A want is an additional luxury that you could live without, such as dining out. And savings are additional debt repayments, retirement contributions to your pension fund, or money that you're saving for a rainy day.

The 50/30/20 rule can make budgeting easier. The rule allocates 50% of your take-home pay to needs, 30% to wants, and 20% to savings. Debt payments are technically in the savings bucket. You'll need to decide how to split that 20% between debt payments above the minimums and cash savings.

What is the 15 3 credit card payment trick? ›

By making a credit card payment 15 days before your payment due date—and again three days before—you're able to reduce your balances and show a lower credit utilization ratio before your billing cycle ends. That information is reported to the credit bureaus.

Pay your balance every month

Paying the balance in full has great benefits. If you wait to pay the balance or only make the minimum payment it accrues interest. If you let this continue it can potentially get out of hand and lead to debt. Missing a payment can not only accrue interest but hurt your credit score.

Pay Off Your Balance

The golden rule of credit card usage is to do everything you can to pay off your entire balance each month. If you can do this, you won't be charged any interest.

Hopefully, you wouldn't do this, but the way the 50/30/20 budget is set up, it can cause high-income individuals to spend a lot of money on things that they don't need and not save enough for important financial goals.

The 60/30/10 budgeting method involves allotting 60% of your monthly income toward your needs, 30% toward your wants and 10% toward your savings. The format may look familiar as it follows the same structure as the long-standing 50/30/20 budgeting method.

A popular savings rule of thumb in which 50% of your income goes towards necessities (groceries, rent, utilities), 20% goes towards savings, debt, and investments, and 30% goes towards flexible spending.

According to this rule, you must categorise your after-tax income into three broad categories: 50% for your needs, 30% for your wants and 20% for your savings. This way, you set aside a fixed amount from your income for each of the categories.

One rule to live by when budgeting is to use 50 percent of your income on needs, 30 percent on wants, and 20 percent on saving for financial goals. The table on the next page gives you a snapshot of the type of items that you might assign to each category.

The easiest setup is to have a joint account that both fund to pay shared expenses. Then each partner can have separate accounts to pay for individual assets. Both partners share the financial burden of day-to-day expenses while maintaining financial independence.