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How to use the Budget Splits calculator
Budget Splits takes your take-home pay and divides it across the famous budgeting frameworks: 50/30/20 and three others. It is the fastest way to see, in rands, what each rule asks of your money, and where your car fits inside it.
The tool applies a chosen split to your monthly take-home pay and shows the rand amount for each bucket, with a donut and a weekly breakdown. It carries four presets, each with where it came from and the catch that comes with it.
50/30/20 is the world's default for a reason, but South African needs often blow past 50% once the bond and the fuel are counted. The honest move is to use 60/30/10 while you shrink the needs, not to pretend half your pay covers them. The tool shows you both.
What you'll need
- Your monthly take-home pay, after tax. Every split here is written against take-home, not gross.
- Nothing else. The car tie-in reads the deal you set on the other Auto tabs, if you have one.
How to use it
Enter your take-home pay and pick a split. The four presets are 50/30/20, 70/20/10, 80/20 and 60/30/10. The card under each explains where it comes from and its weakness, so you can pick one that fits your reality.
If you have set up a car on the Finance & Balloon tab, the your-car-inside-this-split card reads it automatically and shows what the car takes from your budget.
Reading your result
Each bucket shows its rand amount and its share. The donut and the weekly line make the split concrete: not 20% to savings, but a specific rand figure a week. The car card grades your all-in car cost against the 20% transport ceiling and against the bucket it lives in.
Zero-based budgeting and the envelope method appear as copy, not sliders, because they are workflows rather than ratios. Pick a split here, then use either to enforce it.
A worked example
A take-home pay of R30,000 on the 50/30/20 split.
| Bucket | Share | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Needs | 50% | R15,000 |
| Wants | 30% | R9,000 |
| Savings & extra debt | 20% | R6,000 |
That is R15,000 for needs, R9,000 for wants and R6,000 for savings and extra debt. If your rent or bond, transport and groceries already run past R15,000, that is the signal to switch to 60/30/10 honestly and work the needs down over time, rather than raid the savings slice every month.
What it does not do
It splits income; it does not track spending. A split is a target, and the envelope or zero-based methods are how you hold to it month to month. It is information, not financial advice.
To work out what car fits the transport slice, use Car Affordability. When you are ready, open Budget Splits.
Money Cat is an information tool, not financial advice. A budget split is a guideline; your own circumstances set what is realistic.