![]() Now, what if something changes down the road? Say you want to take a dream job that pays less than you're currently making or you want to move to a city with a higher cost of living. If that's within your budget, you've paid your bills and you've paid yourself, go for it. Say you know you're spending a hefty sum on eating out, travel or clothes. For another, you'll be able to make room in your budget if necessary. For one thing, you'll have an emergency fund and retirement savings. Once you have a workable budget you'll see how useful it can be to prepare you for the future. Having a budget that you regularly reassess will help you take stock of where your money is going and how close you are to meeting your goals. You "pay yourself" by beefing up your emergency fund and investing for retirement, you pay your bills (including any debts you're carrying) and then you can spend what's left over. But it's living from paycheck to paycheck in a good way. That may sound like living paycheck to paycheck and in a way it is. Ideally, every dollar of your income should be accounted for in a monthly budget. Let's talk about living within your means. Second, having a budget leaves you better prepared for changes in the future. First, it helps you live within your means. Having a budget is important for two reasons. Budgeting also lets you see how much you're spending in different categories. Household Budget BasicsĪ budget lets you manage how much you're spending relative to how much you're earning. ![]() ![]() With our interactive budget calculator you can see how people like you in your zip code are budgeting based on factors including the number of adults and children in the household and the size of the household's annual income. We offer advice on how to streamline your budget, how to fix your budget and how to stick to your budget. Our supermarket page gives you typical costs for a range of foods.Here at SmartAsset we talk a lot about budgets. Some items near the bottom of the table we’ve left for you to estimate based on your personal lifestyle. You will know better than anyone else the sort of spender you are in each category. Some people are quite happy to be frugal motorists while spending more on food, wine and entertaining than our ‘good living’ estimate. Not a millionaire lifestyle, but probably within the top 10 percent of lifestyles for New Zealand. Very nice house, in above average area, two good quality cars bought new and replaced every 3 years, nice food, meals out, a glass or two of wine with most evening meals. Lives reasonably well but no great extravagance: some wine each week – some takeaway food – nice house in good area – a good quality Japanese family car, bought second-hand that travels around 10,000 miles (16,000 km) each year. Quite happy to buy cheap and second-hand goods runs a cheap car that travels around 5000 miles (8,000 km) each year. Use the mortgage calculator (opens in pop-up window) to figure out your mortgage costs.īasic living with few treats or entertainment.Find typical weekly rents in different suburbs and towns here.The calculator will apply current income-tax rates to your weekly living costs and tell you the gross annual wage you need.(You might want to allow for any weekly costs you have that we haven’t included above.) Enter your total weekly costs in the box below and press The Gross Annual Income I Need Is….You’ll need to earn more than this, because the government taxes you. You’ve now got an estimate of your weekly cash needs in New Zealand.The CalculatorĬhildcare – full-time in a good pre-school ![]() If you need your salary to go further, read 22 Ways to Slash Your Cost of Living in New Zealand. These will help you find housing cost estimates and explain the calculator more fully. If it’s your first time here, you might find it helpful to read the notes at the bottom of the page. The calculator will estimate the salary you need, taking into account the tax you will have to pay on your salary. You’ll need to adjust these costs depending on your personal circumstances.įor each item you’ll be spending money on, click the button for “frugal” or “modest” or “good living” or enter your personal estimate into the calculator.Īfter you’ve entered all the costs, click the “Add” button, to find your total estimated weekly spending. The calculator is based on the living costs of a family of two adults and two school-aged children. ![]()
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