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 median rent in your city fits the 50 percent needs envelope. Sourced from ASIC Moneysmart, the ATO, CoreLogic and the ABS.
Use your before-tax salary. Graduate Outcomes Survey medians sit around $65,000 to $80,000 depending on the field.
Median unit rent $720 per week. Grocery baseline $160 per week.
Weekly take-home
$1,002.15
After tax, Medicare and HECS-HELP.
Annual take-home
$52,112
Income tax $10,288 + Medicare $1,300 + HECS $1,300.
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% | $501.08 | $26,056 | Rent, groceries, utilities, transport, insurance, phone. |
| Wants | 30% | $300.65 | $15,634 | Eating out, streaming, hobbies, weekend trips. |
| Savings | 20% | $200.43 | $10,422 | Emergency fund, extra HECS, first-home deposit, super top-up. |
Sydney median rent is unaffordable on this salary
Median unit rent in Sydney is $720 per week. Your needs envelope (50% of weekly take-home) is $501.08. Rent therefore takes 144% of the needs envelope, or 72% of total take-home pay.
After rent and the $160 grocery baseline, -$378.92 remains in the needs envelope for utilities, transport, insurance and phone.
Options: share a place (reduces rent by 30 to 50%), choose a cheaper suburb further from the CBD, 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 2024-25 ATO resident tax scale, the 2 percent Medicare levy and HECS-HELP compulsory repayment.
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 median weekly unit rent against the 50 percent needs envelope. Rent is the largest single needs cost; when median 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: a graduate accountant on $65,000 has weekly take-home pay of about $1,002 after tax, Medicare and HECS-HELP. The 50 percent needs envelope is about $501 per week. Sydney's median unit rent of $720 per week is above that envelope and triggers the rent-unaffordable flag. Hobart's $480 per week sits comfortably inside it.
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 2024-25 ATO resident income-tax scale, the 2 percent Medicare levy, and HECS-HELP compulsory repayment (rate-on-whole-of-income) on top of the gross salary you enter. Toggle HECS off if you do not have a study debt.
- Where do the rent and grocery figures come from?
- City medians are pulled from our cost-of-living pages. Rent is the CoreLogic Quarterly Rental Review weekly median asking rent for a unit. Groceries are conservative single-person weekly estimates derived from the ABS Consumer Price Index expenditure basket.
- What does the rent-unaffordable flag mean?
- It means the city's median 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 matches the ATO Schedule 8 (HELP/VSL/SFSS) and the 2024-25 individual income-tax scale to the cent. 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
ExamExplained does not provide financial, legal or tax advice. The 50/30/20 framework is an estimation heuristic, not a prescription. City rent and grocery figures are sourced medians and your actual costs will vary. For personal advice, talk to a licensed financial adviser or visit ASIC Moneysmart.