How should you budget your salary?
Enter your monthly income and see a clean needs / wants / savings split in seconds, the 50/30/20 rule, with a savings dial you control. Naira-first.
Needs = rent, food, transport, utilities, data. Wants = eating out, subscriptions, fun. Save = emergency fund, goals, investments. A starting point, adjust to your reality.
How to budget your salary in Nigeria
Budgeting is not about restriction, it is about deciding where your money goes before it decides for you. The simplest framework is the 50/30/20 rule: half your income to needs, a third to wants, and a fifth to savings. Enter your salary above and the calculator does the split instantly.
Needs, about 50%
The non-negotiables: rent, food, transport, electricity and water, airtime and data. In Nigerian reality this bucket often runs above 50% because rent and transport are heavy, that is fine, as long as you cover it by trimming wants, not savings.
Wants, about 30%
Eating out, delivery, subscriptions, nights out, the soft life. This is the flexible bucket. When money is tight, this is the first place to cut, and the place a spending tracker like Automonie shows you the most surprises.
Save & invest, about 20%
Pay yourself first. Move this out on the day your salary lands, before you spend anything, so it never becomes "whatever is left" (which is usually nothing). Even 10% builds the habit if 20% is a stretch.
How much should I save on ₦150,000 or ₦200,000?
On ₦150,000, a 20% savings target is ₦30,000 a month. On ₦200,000, it is ₦40,000. Automate it and you will not miss it. The exact figure matters less than doing it every single month, consistency compounds.
Budgeting is the plan. Automonie is the receipts.
A budget only works if you know where the money actually went. Import your bank statement or paste your alerts, and Automonie shows you the real split, free, on web and Android.