Decoding The 50/20/30 Budget

With so may financial obligations, how are we to balance spending and saving? Angelique Ruzicka shares a plan for budgeting success

It’s not surprising to hear that most of us dedicate 72% of our hard-earned cash to debt, according to 1Life’s 2017 survey. They also found that 23% is being spent on treats and other incidentals, leaving only 5% for savings. But how much savings should be put aside monthly? How much of your salary should be going to the essentials, from buying groceries to paying bills? And will there be any cash left over to do what you actually enjoy?

In the book All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan, former Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren and her daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi popularised the 50/20/30 budget rule to help us achieve financial balance. The basic premise is that you divide after-tax income into various pots, using 50% for ‘needs’, 20% for savings and debt repayments, and 30% for ‘wants’.