Compares every category against real benchmarks and shows exactly where you're overspending.
Potential monthly savings
$308
A realistic 40% recovery of over-benchmark spending.
5 categories
$290/mo
Against benchmark allocations for your income, 5 categories are running high by a combined $771 a month. Benchmarks are starting points rather than rules — in expensive metros housing is unavoidably above target — but a category far above benchmark is usually where money is disappearing without a decision being made.
You spend $1,850 (36% of take-home), against a benchmark of $1,560 (30%). A roommate, a renegotiated lease or moving at renewal moves more money than every small cut combined.
At $680 you're modestly over the $520 benchmark. Meal planning cuts both grocery waste and mid-week takeaway; $150–300 is typical.
At $420 you're modestly over the $260 benchmark. The highest-variance category in most budgets and the easiest to halve without feeling deprived.
Cutting every over-benchmark category to target would free $771, but that assumes perfect discipline across all of them at once, which rarely holds. Recovering about 40% — $308 a month — is achievable and durable. Invested at 7% over 20 years that becomes roughly $160,654.
Money that is freed up but not assigned gets spent. Set an automatic transfer of $308 on payday so the saving happens before you see the balance. Then build the full budget around what remains.
Build your 50/30/20 budgetWorked scenarios with the full analysis, so you can see how the numbers move before entering your own.
Income covers spending, but several discretionary categories run well above benchmark.
Potential monthly savings
$308
Against benchmark allocations for your income, 5 categories are running high by a combined $771 a month. Benchmarks are starting points rather than rules — in expensive metros housing is unavoidably above target — but a category far above benchmark is usually where money is disappearing without a decision being made.
You spend $1,850 (36% of take-home), against a benchmark of $1,560 (30%). A roommate, a renegotiated lease or moving at renewal moves more money than every small cut combined.
At $680 you're modestly over the $520 benchmark. Meal planning cuts both grocery waste and mid-week takeaway; $150–300 is typical.
Housing far above benchmark, forcing every other category down.
Potential monthly savings
$456
Against benchmark allocations for your income, 3 categories are running high by a combined $1,140 a month. Benchmarks are starting points rather than rules — in expensive metros housing is unavoidably above target — but a category far above benchmark is usually where money is disappearing without a decision being made.
You spend $3,100 (46% of take-home), against a benchmark of $2,040 (30%). A roommate, a renegotiated lease or moving at renewal moves more money than every small cut combined.
At $720 you're modestly over the $680 benchmark. Meal planning cuts both grocery waste and mid-week takeaway; $150–300 is typical.
The pattern that quietly grows a credit card balance every month.
Potential monthly savings
$552
Against benchmark allocations for your income, 8 categories are running high by a combined $1,380 a month. Benchmarks are starting points rather than rules — in expensive metros housing is unavoidably above target — but a category far above benchmark is usually where money is disappearing without a decision being made.
You spend $1,600 (40% of take-home), against a benchmark of $1,200 (30%). A roommate, a renegotiated lease or moving at renewal moves more money than every small cut combined.
You spend $460 (12% of take-home), against a benchmark of $200 (5%). The highest-variance category in most budgets and the easiest to halve without feeling deprived.
Category benchmarks exist to answer one question quickly: is this number unusual? They are not targets you must hit. Housing above 30% of take-home pay is extremely common in expensive metros and is not automatically a mistake.
What benchmarks are good at is spotting the category you had stopped noticing. Most people can name their rent to the dollar and have no idea what they spend on food delivery. Comparing against a reference makes the invisible categories visible, which is the entire point.
Popular advice fixates on small recurring purchases because they are easy to name. But housing, transportation and food routinely make up 60–70% of a household budget, and a 10% improvement there dwarfs eliminating every small indulgence.
This tool sorts by absolute dollars above benchmark rather than by percentage, for that reason. A category 200% over benchmark on a $40 base matters far less than one 20% over on a $2,000 base, even though the percentage looks alarming.
Any tool can tell you that cutting every over-benchmark category to target would free a large sum. Almost nobody sustains that, because it requires simultaneous behaviour change across several areas of life at once.
Assuming a 40% recovery produces a number you might actually hit, and a plan that survives month three. A smaller sustained change compounds; a larger abandoned one does not.
They're a diagnostic. Being above benchmark on housing in an expensive city is normal — it just has to come out of somewhere else.
It feels productive and moves very little. Sort by dollars, not by percentage over target.
A month with a holiday or a car repair isn't representative. Average three.
Unassigned money gets absorbed by ordinary spending within a month or two. Automate the transfer immediately.
Insurance premiums, gifts and repairs total $3,000–6,000 a year for most households and appear in no monthly view.
Export three months of transactions from your bank and card accounts, categorize them, and average. Most people are surprised by two categories — usually food (groceries plus delivery plus restaurants) and small recurring subscriptions. Three months matters because a single month can be atypical.
As starting points: housing 30%, transportation 15%, groceries 10%, dining 5%, subscriptions 2%, shopping 5%, insurance 6%, debt 10%. These are diagnostics, not rules — in high-cost metros the housing share is often unavoidably higher, and the correct response is compressing discretionary categories rather than savings.
Most households can sustainably recover about 40% of their over-benchmark spending. Aiming for 100% typically produces a plan abandoned within two months. A smaller change you keep beats a larger one you don't.
Bigger expenses first, then subscriptions. Housing, transportation and food are 60–70% of a typical budget, so a modest improvement there outweighs cancelling every subscription. Cancel the unused ones too — just don't mistake it for the main event.
No. An app tracks what you spent; this tells you whether those amounts are unusual and which one to attack first. They complement each other — use the app's category totals as the inputs here.
The next calculations that usually follow this one.
Built on take-home pay, with the annual costs that break most monthly budgets.
The annual total, the per-use cost, and what cancelling would be worth if invested.
Add up every category, see the percentages, and find what you've stopped noticing.
Income in, obligations out, and the number that decides whether you're building or slipping.
Sized on essential expenses and your actual risk profile — not a generic three-to-six months.
Guides that explain the decisions behind these numbers.
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