Salary Budget Calculator India — 50/30/20 Plan from Take-Home Pay
Enter your monthly in-hand salary. Get a needs/wants/savings split, a custom category breakdown, and a year-end savings projection — instantly. Download Excel.
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How to Budget Your Salary in India
The 50/30/20 rule splits take-home pay into three buckets: 50% for needs (rent, groceries, EMIs, utilities, transport), 30% for wants (dining out, entertainment, shopping, subscriptions), and 20% for savings and investments (SIP, EPF top-up, emergency fund). It works as a starting framework, not a rigid law — high-rent cities like Mumbai or Bangalore often push the needs share to 60% or higher, especially in the first few years after relocating for work.
Fixed commitments matter more than the percentage split itself. Rent, EMIs, and insurance premiums don't flex month to month, so the real planning question is whether your needs bucket, once fixed costs are subtracted, leaves enough room for groceries, utilities, and transport without bleeding into the wants or savings buckets. Tracking fixed costs as a separate line — rather than burying them inside "needs" — makes it obvious when a salary increase should go toward savings rather than lifestyle inflation.
The savings bucket should split further: an emergency fund (3–6 months of expenses, kept liquid) comes first, then EPF/NPS for retirement, then equity mutual fund SIPs for medium-to-long-term goals. Many salaried Indians treat SIP contributions as "savings" while ignoring that EPF (12% of basic, automatically deducted) already counts toward that 20% — double-counting EPF and SIP separately can make a budget look tighter than it actually is.