Your spending is the hardest number to guess — unless you track it, one big figure is a shot in the dark. So don't guess it: build it up category by category. Fill in what you spend each month, and this splits it into essentials (the bills you can't avoid) and discretionary (the flexible wants), with your annual total. Nothing is sent to a server.
The bills you can't easily avoid.
The flexible spending you could dial up or down.
Your everyday essentials and discretionary spending are exactly what the full FIRE Calculator needs to work out when you can retire — it eases discretionary spending as you age (the real-world "retirement smile") while essentials stay flat, so the split genuinely matters.
This updates just the spending in your existing plan — everything else stays as you set it. Housing and healthcare are set separately in the planner (housing in the Life plan, healthcare in its own field), so they're left out of the figures sent over — add them there.
Update my plan's spending →Because they behave differently. Essentials — housing, utilities, groceries, transport, insurance — are mostly fixed; you can trim them, but slowly and with effort. Discretionary spending — dining out and bars, travel, subscriptions, hobbies — is the flexible part you can cut quickly if you need to. That flexibility is your safety margin: in a bad market or a tight year, the discretionary slice is what flexes, and a plan that knows the difference is far more resilient than one built on a single spending number.
Don't try to recall one monthly total — you'll be wrong. Instead, look at each category on its own: what's your rent or mortgage? A normal grocery month? Be honest about dining out and bars, which is where most people underestimate badly (a few hundred a month adds up to thousands a year). Add a line for travel even though it's lumpy — divide your typical yearly trips by 12. A dozen rough line items beats one confident guess every time.
A common target is ~50% of take-home pay on needs, ~30% on wants, and ~20% on saving and debt. It's a rough compass, not a rule — your real split, shown above, is what matters. If your discretionary share is high, that's not bad: it's flexibility, and the biggest lever you have on both saving more now and needing less later.
Related: Savings rate calculator · Coast FIRE · How long will my money last?
Estimates only, not financial advice. The most accurate budget comes from your own bank and card statements — this is a structured starting point. Your inputs stay in your browser — nothing is sent to a server. · Full planner · All calculators · Savings rate · Español · Português · Deutsch · Français · Italiano · Nederlands · Svenska · Norsk · Dansk · Polski · Čeština · Suomi · Ελληνικά · Türkçe · Bahasa Indonesia · Bahasa Melayu · 日本語 · 한국어 · 中文 · ไทย · עברית · العربية · How it works · Feedback