Bring weekly, four-weekly, monthly and occasional household money into one monthly view, then see your surplus or shortfall instantly.
Saved automatically in your browser only — nothing is sent to us or anyone else.
Enter each amount and choose how often you receive it. The planner converts everything to a monthly figure.
Use annual frequency for costs such as insurance or Christmas if you want to spread them evenly across the year.
Your entries save as you type on this device and in this browser.
This is a free budgeting tool for information only, not financial advice. Figures are estimates based on what you enter. If you're struggling with money, free help is available from Citizens Advice, StepChange and MoneyHelper. finrato.com is independent and not affiliated with any government body or MoneyHelper.
No. Your budget is saved only in local storage in your browser. The figures are not sent to Finrato or anyone else.
Weekly amounts are multiplied by 52 and divided by 12. Four-weekly amounts are multiplied by 13 and divided by 12. Quarterly amounts are divided by 3, and annual amounts by 12.
No. It is an informational guideline. Household circumstances vary, and the planner's category-to-bucket mapping is approximate.
A budget is not about spending less — it is about knowing where your money goes before the month decides for you. The planner above does the one thing most budgets get wrong: it puts every cost on the same footing by converting weekly, four-weekly, quarterly and annual amounts to a single monthly figure. That is where household budgets quietly fail — the car insurance, the MOT, the Christmas spend and the annual subscriptions never feel like “monthly” money, so they ambush you. Spread across twelve months, they become visible.
Budget from what actually lands in your account — after tax, National Insurance and pension. Gross pay is a number you never see. If your income varies (shifts, self-employment, commission), use a cautious average or your lowest recent month, so the plan holds in a lean one rather than only in a good one.
A well-known starting split is 50% of take-home on needs (housing, utilities, food, transport, insurance, minimum debt payments), 30% on wants (eating out, subscriptions, hobbies, holidays) and 20% on savings and clearing debt beyond the minimums. The planner shows your split against these targets. Treat it as a compass: in much of the UK, rent alone breaches 50%, and that is arithmetic, not failure. The value is seeing the gap and deciding deliberately which bucket absorbs it, rather than finding out at the cash machine.
This planner saves everything in your browser only — nothing is sent to us or anyone else, and there is no account to create. Come back on the same device and your budget is still there; clear your browser data and it is gone. That is deliberate: your household finances are nobody's business but yours.
Budget on a cautious figure — an average of the last three months, or your lowest recent month if things are tight. It is safer for a plan to have room to spare in a good month than to break in a bad one. Revisit the number whenever your situation changes.
Minimum payments are needs — missing them has real consequences. Anything you pay above the minimum belongs in the 20% savings-and-debt bucket, because clearing debt builds your net worth exactly like saving, often at a better guaranteed return. If money is tight and you can't cover essentials, see our bill prioritiser and get free debt advice before cutting a priority bill.
The lower the income, the larger the share needs consume — that is maths, not a personal failing. Use the split as a direction of travel: if needs take 70%, the goal is nudging that toward 65% over a year through cheaper tariffs, renegotiated bills or shared transport, not forcing a 20% savings rate overnight. And check whether you're missing support you're entitled to with our benefits checker.