Budgeting Calculators
Build a Brighter Financial Future
Making a budget helps manage your expenses and save more for major milestones and emergencies. This is where our budgeting calculators come in to help.
Calculator Disclaimer
About Budgeting Calculators
By balancing your income and your expenses, you’ll have a better idea of how to save more, pay off debt, and make big decisions. Here’s how to use each of our budgeting calculators to achieve those goals:
How Much Am I Spending?
With this budgeting calculator, you can enter expenses into categories to see where your money is going. Once you have this information, it will help you reduce spending in relevant categories. You’ll simply enter housing costs, loan payments, insurance expenses, utility expenses, and other expenses. Click on the pencil next to each of these categories to enter multiple lines of expenses, and this tool will add up expenditures.
Balance Your Checkbook
With this tool, list your most recent statement balance, and then add in check amounts not listed in this statement (or in any previous ones) as well as deposits. The result should be the same as what you have listed in your register as your current balance.
Household Cash Flow Tracker
By entering your monthly income and expenses, you’ll get a current financial snapshot—and can then work to ensure that you don’t spend more than what you bring in each month as you build a healthy financial future. You can then consider putting any leftover funds into a savings account, which can serve as an emergency fund for unanticipated expenses or to save up for big purchases.
Spare Change
If you, like many people, toss your change into a jar each day or when you empty a pocket or clean out a purse, you can easily see what it totals with this budgeting calculator. Just enter how many pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters you have, and our tool will do the rest! If you’d like, you can have your checking card transactions rounded up to the nearest dollar, with the difference being deposited into an SCCU Saving Cents account.
Calculate Your Net Worth
Just like businesses do, individuals can calculate what they’re worth by maintaining a balance sheet that lists current assets and liabilities. First, list what you own—homes, cars, investments, cash, and so forth—and what you owe: mortgages, loans, credit cards, and so on. (To find out what goes into each category, click the name of the category.) Then, using your budgeting strategies of choice, focus on paying down liabilities while saving and otherwise growing your assets.
Save or Pay Off Debt
When you build up your savings account, you’ll have cash to tap into if an emergency occurs, such as the loss of income. If you also have loan or credit card debt, it can make sense to see if you benefit more by keeping the funds in savings or paying down debt. This will be determined by the interest rate you’re earning on your savings versus the rate you’re paying on your debt. The difference between the two interest rates should help you to see where you’ll get the best return for your money.
Should You Work Outside the Home?
The last of our budgeting calculators can help you decide if it makes sense to return to work after taking care of children, parents, etc. It can also help if you’re mulling over leaving the workforce to stay home with them. We make a challenging decision easier to make as you weigh the lost income and benefits, such as health insurance premiums and retirement plans, against what you’ll save.
When it comes to designing your budget, multiple budgeting strategies exist, including taking advantage of automatic transfers in and out of your bank accounts. This would include direct deposits of paychecks in your checking account with a predetermined amount going into your savings and retirement. You would set up automatic withdrawals of your mortgage and other payments. With this strategy, you’ll need to ensure that your checking account balance is sufficient to cover your payments by keeping up-to-date records.
At Space Coast Credit Union (SCCU), we provide the resources and support you need to achieve financial wellness, including but definitely not limited to these budgeting calculators.
Frequently Asked Questions
This is one of the most popular types of budgeting strategies. By looking at your after-tax monthly income, you will use:
- 50% for things you need: your house payment, transportation, groceries, insurance, and so forth
- 30% for things you want but don’t absolutely need: a nicer car, for example, or eating out at restaurants
- 20% for savings or paying down debt: The “Save or Pay Off Debt” calculator comes in handy with how much to earmark for either purpose.
If, through budgeting, you discover that you’re spending more than 50% on necessities, look for ways to cut back. For example, maybe you choose a different plan for your cell phone or insurance policy with lower monthly payments. Perhaps you could look into ways to save on groceries by going with store-brand items and using coupons/rewards.
Because your 30% category contains wants, you may find more ways in this category to cut back, such as cutting back on monthly subscriptions for streaming services, apps, or other entertainment services. This article offers 10 ways to save more.
The golden rule of money is another of the budgeting strategies that many people choose. Also called “pay yourself first,” it involves putting money into your savings account before you handle any other budgeting functions that month. This puts a focus on building an emergency savings account and then saving for other purposes of choice: for a down payment on a house, for a dream wedding or vacation, or to send your children to college.
To do this, you’ll first need a good budget so you know how much money to put away each month. In other words, you’ll have to know what you’ll need to pay your housing expenses and other bills so you can successfully pay yourself first.
Whenever possible, build some flexibility into the budgeting strategies you choose. This will help you to stick to the plan and allow for some wiggle room when unexpected expenses arise or a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity shows up.
The most effective way to budget is the one that works for you and you can stick to—which means that what works well for one person may not be the best strategy for you. Budgeting strategies that work well for many people include the automatic payment structure we’ve mentioned on this page along with the 50/30/20 rule and golden rule of money discussed in the first two FAQs. Other budgeting strategies include:
- Zero-Based Budget: With this plan, you’ll assign every single dollar of your monthly income to an expense or your savings account, which leaves no money aside for any impulse shopping. For this to be successful, you’ll need to know the precise amounts of each bill, how much you’ll spend on groceries that month, on gasoline, and so forth. All of the rest goes into your savings account.
- Envelope Budget: In the traditional envelope system, you’ll insert hard cash into designated envelopes for each of your spending categories as well as for your savings. Being able to see the actual money can help some people not to overspend because it’s more tangible than using a credit card or even a check. If money is left over in an envelope at the end of a month, you could leave it there and have more to spend in that category the following month (which could work well with something like groceries); transfer it to a different envelope where it was hard to stay within budget; or put it into your savings account.
You can use our budgeting template to record information as you make a budget. Here are the key steps:
- Gather twelve months of financial statements.
- Calculate your total monthly income.
- Tally up the expenses you have to pay each month.
- Add up your leisure expenses.
- Subtract expenses from your income.
Then, create goals that are SMART:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
Be sure to include an emergency savings account that will contain three to six months’ worth of expenses in your budgeting strategies. Then, tailor your budget in a way that works for your situation. Review your expenses regularly, either daily or weekly, to make sure you’re sticking to the budgeting plan. Adjust accordingly as either unanticipated expenses arise or unexpected income arrives. Consider getting a budgeting buddy for support and to help keep you accountable. Frugally treat yourself for successes.
The information provided by these calculators is intended for illustrative purposes only and is not intended to represent actual user-defined parameters. The default figures shown are hypothetical and may not be applicable to your individual situation. Be sure to consult a financial professional prior to relying on the results.