How to budget income using the 50/30/20 rule.

Categories

Recent Post

Table of Contents

How should one budget? Where do I begin? Let me start by saying that personal finance is not a one size fits all kind of thing. Knowing that let’s pick a subject.

What should we call him? I’ve chosen him because men don’t really have that many expenses. You know that I’m right.

Let’s call him Alex.

 

I have a few assumptions about Alex. Alex is 24 years old. This is his first permanent and stable job. The job pays him ksh. 20,000 after taxes. His boss doesn’t have a medical cover for him yet. Alex has no dependents; he is not married yet. This young man occasionally sends something to his mother. He lives near his place of work therefore no transport cost. Maybe only the occasional Boda ride in the wee hours of the night. He is also a Christian. I know that you are wondering why all this is necessary. But I’ll get to that soon.

What else have I left out? Oh yes, just like many young people his age he has zero savings and zero investments.An image of a wallet with a few notes of dollars
Alex has decided to take control of his money situation. He has decided to tell his money where to go.

He has decided to stop wondering where his money goes off to. This means he has decided to start budgeting his income.

Financial literacy

What is the 50/30/20 budgeting rule?

Imagine of a calculator,  pen and piece of printed paper of a budget on a white surface

The 50/30/20 budgeting rule states that 50% of your income should go into your needs. This includes housing/ rent, paying utility bills (electricity and water bills), food, and so on.

30% of your income should go into satisfying your wants. That is fun and entertainment money.

20% of your income should go into savings and investments. That’s reasonable don’t you think?
Well in my experience with the rule, it isn’t 100% perfect. Therefore, it’s better to use it as a guideline.

Now back to our subject, Alex. How does Alex budget his ksh. 20,000 salary using the 50/30/20 budgeting rule?

How to budget ksh. 20,000 income.

Image of a laptop on a table displaying graphs and charts of a budget According to the 50/30/20 budgeting rule, 50% of Alex’s income should go into his needs. 50% of Ksh. 20,000 is Ksh. 10,000.

This amount will go into paying Alex’s rent of Ksh. 3,500, utility bills (water and electricity) of ksh.500 per month, shopping of Ksh. 1,000 and buying food(groceries) for the month at KSH. 3,000 (ksh.100 per day). Remember that Alex is single.
This gives us a total of Ksh. 8,000. The extra ksh. 2,000 will go into the occasional Boda rides.


Sinking funds: How To save up for the festive season

30% goes into wants in the budget rule.


30% of ksh. 20,000 gives us ksh. 6,000.
This ksh.6, 000 will go into satisfying Alex’s cravings and the like. Wants are things that we can live without. Though we get a lot of satisfaction from them. This is fun and entertainment money.
For Alex, this amount will go into buying airtime for the month. He buys monthly Telkom bundles of Ksh. 1,000. That is 1GB per day. He also buys a monthly 1500 SMS from Safaricom at KSH. 100. The rest of the amount (KSH. 4,900) will go into eating out with friends and the occasional mutura.

Now down to 20%.

20% of the income should go to savings and investments according to the budget rule.

Image of a person putting money in a piggy bank
In Alex’s case 20% of ksh.20, 000 is ksh. 4,000.
Remember that Alex is a Christian therefore 10% of his income(ksh. 2000) goes into tithes.

He has decided that 5% will go into savings. That is ksh. 1,000 and 5% will go into investments. (ksh. 1,000). Alex has opted to invest ksh. 1,000 in a money market fund.

After doing his calculations, Alex noticed that he did not account for giving and health cover. He opted to draw this amount from the 30% wants section. He took ksh. 1000 to give his mother and ksh. 500 for the health cover.
I hope that you now understand why I said that the 50/30/20 budgeting rule is not perfect. Despite this shortcoming, I highly recommend this budgeting rule.


Get the free 50/30/20 budgeting template here.


In conclusion, budgeting is the first step towards taking control of your money situation.
If the numbers show an ugly reality, don’t give up. Make a plan and get out of the rut. All the best in your money endeavours.

join our Facebook community

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
X
Threads
Telegram
WhatsApp
Pinterest
Picture of Author Bio

Author Bio

Gertrude Njeri is an expert in creating personal finance content and has a bachelor’s degree in accounting. She is a skilled personal finance content creator with more than three years of expertise (writer, video creator, and editor). Additionally, she excels in simplifying complex subjects into engaging, clear, and easy-to-understand information. Her instructional materials go a long way toward assisting individuals in making wise financial decisions.

30 thoughts on “How to budget income using the 50/30/20 rule.”

  1. On the other hand, these who program to bet consistently will notice the toll a higher vig can take on your bankroll more than time.

  2. Hello! Tһis is kind of off t᧐pic butt I need some guidance from ann eѕtаblisһed blog.
    Iѕ it tough too ѕet up your own blog? I’m not very
    tecһincal but I can figᥙre things out prettү quick.
    I’m thinking about ѕetting up my own but I’m not sure where to begin. Do you have any ideas
    or suggestions? Thank you

    Here is my webpazge payday loans same day deposit

  3. Greate article. Keep writing such kind of info on your blog.
    Im really impressed by your blog.[X-N-E-W-L-I-N-S-P-I-N-X]Hey there, You’ve performed a great job.
    I’ll certainly digg it and personally recommend to my friends.
    I’m sure they’ll be benefited from this site.

    Here is my homepage :: http://www.jjsapido.com/fotografia/modules.php?name=Your_Account&op=userinfo&username=BohannonNola

  4. Hi, i feel that i noticed you visited my weblog
    thus i got here to ?go back the choose?.I am
    attempting to find things to improve my web site!I
    assume its good enough to use a few of your concepts!!

    Take a look at my blog post; kebe.top

  5. I am really ⅼoving the theme/design of your weblog. Do you ever run into any
    internet browser compatibilіty issues? A small numЬer of myy blog readers have
    complained aƄout my site not working сorrectly in Eⲭplorеr buut lߋoks greɑt іn Opеra.
    Do you have any ideas to help fix this issue?

  6. Thank you so much with regard to giving everyone an update on this subject on your site.
    Please realize that if a brand new post becomes available or in case any improvements
    occur to the current publication, I would be considering reading a lot more and learning how to make good usage of those
    tactics you reveal. Thanks for your time and consideration of other folks by making this blog available.

    My blog post … kebe.top

  7. I was just looking for this info for a while. After 6 hours of continuous Googleing,
    finally I got it in your site. I wonder what is the lack of
    Google strategy that don’t rank this kind of informative sites in top of the
    list. Usually the top websites are full of garbage.

    Also visit my web-site; benjamindinh.fr

  8. Saya akan segera rebut rss feed Anda karena saya tidak
    bisa
    Ahaa, ini bagus percakapan tentang topik tulisan di tempat ini di situs
    ini, saya sudah membaca semua itu, jadi saat ini saya juga berkomentar di sini .

    my page … Daftar judi slot joker123 (gameaco.com)

  9. great put up, very informative. I ponder why the other specialists of this sector do not
    notice this. You should proceed your writing. I’m confident, you’ve a great
    readers’ base already!

  10. GO!!!
    This phrase was said by the first cosmonaut on Earth – Yuri Gagarin. (Yuri Gagarin)
    He was the first astronaut on Earth. He was Russian! …
    Now Russia is becoming a strong country, gas pipelines, a vaccine against COVID-19, an army.
    Is this very reminiscent of the communist Soviet Union?
    How do you think?
    Now we have total control in our country. I am interested in the opinion of foreigners.

    Албонумисматико

    ПОЕХАЛИ!!

  11. GO!!!
    This phrase was said by the first cosmonaut on Earth – Yuri Gagarin. (Yuri Gagarin)
    He was the first astronaut on Earth. He was Russian! …
    Now Russia is becoming a strong country, gas pipelines, a vaccine against COVID-19, an army.
    Is this very reminiscent of the communist Soviet Union?
    How do you think?
    Now we have total control in our country. I am interested in the opinion of foreigners.

    Албонумисматико

    ПОЕХАЛИ!!

  12. Pingback: How to budget KES10000 using the 50/30/20 budgeting method - Financebuddy

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top