Graduate budget calculator: 50/30/20 by city
Free Australian graduate budget calculator. Apply the 50/30/20 framework to a take-home weekly wage and check whether typical unit rent in your city fits the 50 percent needs envelope. Sourced from ASIC Moneysmart, the ATO, SQM Research and state rental bond data.
Use your before-tax salary. Graduate Outcomes Survey medians sit around $65,000 to $80,000 depending on the field.
Typical unit rent $755 per week.
Weekly take-home
$1,032.31
After tax, Medicare and HECS-HELP.
Annual take-home
$53,680
Income tax $10,020 + Medicare $1,300 + HECS $0.
Framework
50/30/20
Needs, wants and savings split of take-home pay.
Your 50/30/20 split
| Envelope | Share | Weekly | Annual | Covers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Needs | 50% | $516.16 | $26,840 | Rent, groceries, utilities, transport, insurance, phone. |
| Wants | 30% | $309.69 | $16,104 | Eating out, streaming, hobbies, weekend trips. |
| Savings | 20% | $206.46 | $10,736 | Emergency fund, extra HECS, first-home deposit, super top-up. |
Sydney unit rent is unaffordable on this salary
Typical unit rent in Sydney is $755 per week. Your needs envelope (50% of weekly take-home) is $516.16. Rent therefore takes 146% of the needs envelope, or 73% of total take-home pay.
After rent, -$238.84 remains in the needs envelope for groceries, utilities, transport, insurance and phone.
Options: share a place, choose a cheaper suburb, or budget a higher rent share by pulling from the wants or savings envelopes.
How the maths works
The calculator starts from a gross annual salary and converts it to weekly take-home pay using the 2026-27 ATO resident tax scale, the 2 percent Medicare levy and the 2026-27 marginal HELP compulsory repayment (15c per $1 over $69,528).
The 50/30/20 framework then splits take-home pay three ways: 50 percent to needs, 30 percent to wants and 20 percent to savings or extra debt repayment. The framework was popularised by Senator Elizabeth Warren and is the default heuristic in ASIC Moneysmart's Budget Planner.
The affordability check compares the city's typical weekly unit rent against the 50 percent needs envelope. Rent is the largest single needs cost; when that rent exceeds the full needs envelope, no balanced budget is possible on that salary in that city without sharing accommodation or pulling from wants and savings.
Worked example: on a $65,000 salary in 2026-27, income tax is $10,020 ($4,020 plus 30c for each dollar over $45,000) and the Medicare levy is $1,300. No HELP repayment is due because $65,000 is below the $69,528 minimum threshold. Take-home pay is $53,680 a year, or $1,032.31 a week, so the 50 percent needs envelope is $516.16 a week. A weekly rent above that figure triggers the rent-unaffordable flag.
Frequently asked
- What is the 50/30/20 budget?
- It is a simple personal-budget heuristic. After tax, Medicare and any HECS-HELP compulsory repayment, you split take-home pay into 50 percent for needs (rent, groceries, utilities, transport, insurance, phone), 30 percent for wants (eating out, streaming, hobbies) and 20 percent for savings or extra debt repayment. ASIC Moneysmart recommends 50/30/20 as a starting point in its Budget Planner.
- How is take-home pay calculated?
- The calculator uses the same engine as our HECS-HELP repayment calculator. It applies the 2026-27 ATO resident income-tax scale (15 percent from $18,201, 30 percent from $45,001), the 2 percent Medicare levy and the 2026-27 marginal HELP compulsory repayment: nothing up to $69,528, then 15 cents for each dollar above it (17 cents above $129,717). Toggle HELP off if you do not have a study debt. Tax offsets such as the low income tax offset are not included, so tax is slightly overstated on incomes below $66,667.
- Where do the rent figures come from?
- Rents come from our cost-of-living pages: SQM Research weekly asking rents for units in the capital cities, and state median rents for new bonds in Newcastle and the Gold Coast. The calculator does not assume a grocery bill; it tells you how much of the needs envelope is left after rent.
- What does the rent-unaffordable flag mean?
- It means the city's typical weekly rent for a unit already exceeds your full needs envelope (50 percent of take-home pay). At that point there is nothing left in the needs budget for groceries, utilities, transport or insurance. Common workarounds are sharing a place, choosing a cheaper suburb, or shifting share from the wants and savings envelopes to housing.
- Is this financial advice?
- No. ExamExplained does not provide financial, legal, tax or migration advice. The calculator implements a simple heuristic and the ATO tax schedule. For personal advice, talk to a licensed financial adviser or visit ASIC's Moneysmart website.
- How accurate is the figure?
- The tax engine reproduces the ATO's 2026-27 resident tax rates and the ATO's worked HELP repayment examples to the cent, but it ignores tax offsets and assumes your taxable income equals your repayment income. The 50/30/20 envelopes are an estimation framework, not a prescription. Real budgets vary widely by household, partner income, dependents and lifestyle.
Sources
Related
- HECS-HELP repayment calculator
- Compound interest calculator (use the 20 percent savings envelope to hit a goal).
- Cost of living in Australian cities
- All money explainers