FREE BUDGET CALCULATOR — NO SIGN-UP REQUIRED
Plan your monthly budget in minutes, not hours
See your income, expenses and annual savings potential at a glance — with a free, plain-English budget planner built by Otivo, Australia's licensed digital financial advice platform.
Want to turn your surplus into real financial progress?
This calculator provides general estimates. For advice tailored to your specific situation, speak with an adviser or get started with Otivo's digital advice.
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Three steps to a clear monthly budget
No bank connection, no sign-up. Enter your numbers, see where the money goes, and spot your savings potential — all in under five minutes.
Enter your monthly income
Salary, partner’s income, investment income, government benefits and any other money coming in. Use the net figure that actually lands in your bank account.
Add your expenses
Work through five categories — housing, utilities, transport, living and kids — entering monthly figures. Annual bills can be divided by twelve.
See your results
The calculator shows your monthly surplus or deficit, annual savings potential, and a clear category breakdown of where the money is going.
WHY OTIVO
Not your average budget planner
Otivo's budget planner gives you a clear picture of your monthly cash flow — and connects it to the bigger financial picture.
See your surplus or deficit instantly
Enter your income and expenses, and the calculator shows your monthly gap in plain dollars — no percentages, no jargon. A positive figure is money you can put to work; a negative one is your signal to trim.
Visual category breakdown
See exactly how your spending splits across housing, utilities, transport, living and kids. The bar chart makes it easy to spot where the biggest expenses are — and where cuts will have the most impact.
Annual savings potential
Your monthly surplus multiplied by twelve gives you a clear annual savings target. From there, you can direct it at debt, an emergency fund, or extra super contributions — and use Otivo’s other tools to see the long-term effect.
Private and secure
The budget planner runs entirely in the browser. No bank connection, no sign-up, and no data leaves the page. Enter your numbers, see the results, and close the tab — it’s that simple.
See what your surplus could be worth at retirement
Knowing your monthly surplus is powerful. Knowing how to grow it? That's where Otivo's personalised advice comes in. Create a free account and get recommendations built around your actual numbers — salary sacrifice strategies, contribution tips, and a retirement plan that's yours.
Create my free accountEverything you need to know about budgeting in Australia
Why a monthly budget is the foundation of every financial plan
Most money decisions — paying down debt, saving a deposit, lifting super contributions, even thinking about retirement — start with a single question. How much spare cash is there each month? Without that number, every other plan is a guess. A budget answers it in plain dollars and cents, and once it's written down, the rest of the plan tends to fall into place.
Many Australians find that the act of budgeting changes behaviour by itself. Seeing that groceries, transport and subscriptions add up to a particular figure each month can be more useful than any blanket rule about saving 10 or 20 per cent. The numbers are personal, and they're real.
What goes into a household budget
A complete monthly budget covers six main areas. The budget planner above uses these as its tabs so nothing important slips through.
Income: Salary or wages (net of tax), a partner's income, investment income such as dividends or rent, government benefits like Family Tax Benefit, and any other regular money coming in. The budget should use the net figure that actually lands in the bank account.
Housing: Rent or mortgage repayments, council rates, body corporate fees, home and contents insurance, and any regular maintenance set aside. Housing is usually the biggest single expense category, so it's worth being precise.
Utilities and services: Electricity, gas, water, internet, mobile phone, and the streaming and software subscriptions that sneak onto credit card statements.
Transport: Fuel, public transport, vehicle insurance, registration, servicing, and the occasional rideshare. If a car is leased or financed, that repayment sits here too.
Living expenses: Groceries, eating out, healthcare, clothing, gym memberships, hobbies, gifts and travel. This is where most of the leaks tend to hide — and where most of the savings tend to surface.
Children and education: Childcare, school fees, uniforms, after-school activities and education savings. A useful tip is to spread one-off annual costs (like school fees billed in January) across twelve months so the budget reflects the real average.
What to do with a monthly surplus
If the budget shows money left over each month, that surplus is the engine of every long-term plan. Some people choose to direct it at high-interest debt first, particularly credit cards and personal loans. Others split it between an emergency fund (often around three months of essential expenses) and longer-term goals.
Many Australians consider directing part of a surplus into superannuation through salary sacrifice or a tax-deductible personal contribution. Concessional contributions are taxed at 15 per cent inside super rather than at marginal income tax rates, which can be more tax-effective for some people on higher incomes. The current concessional cap is $30,000 per year, and unused cap space can be carried forward for up to five years if total super balance was under $500,000 on 30 June of the previous financial year.
What to do if the budget shows a deficit
A monthly deficit isn't a failure — it's information. The first useful step is usually to sort the expense list by size and look at the top three categories. Small percentage cuts on the biggest items almost always beat huge cuts on the smallest. Renegotiating an internet plan, refinancing a mortgage, or trimming a grocery shop tends to move the needle more than cancelling a single subscription.
How a budget connects to your retirement plan
A monthly budget and a retirement plan are the same conversation in different time frames. The budget tells you what's affordable today; a retirement calculator tells you what today's choices may be worth at age 60 or 67. The two work best together.
One approach is to use the budget to understand surplus, and then feed that surplus into a superannuation projection or retirement planner to see the long-term effect — for example, what an extra $200 a month in concessional contributions could mean over twenty years.