Family Budget Calculator

See the full monthly picture with childcare and kids’ costs included.

Family budgets hide the big costs in plain sight — childcare often rivals rent. This calculator lays out the whole monthly picture including the kids, so nothing is a surprise at the end of the month.

At a glance

What you enter: Household income (net), Housing, Groceries, Transport, Childcare & school, Insurance, Kids’ activities, Everything else
What you get: Family keeps each month, Savings rate
Formula shown: Yes — every step, right below your results.
Cost and privacy: Free, no account needed, and nothing you type is stored.

See worked examples ↓ Read the FAQ ↓ Share this calculator ↓

Household income (net)

Housing

Groceries

Transport

Childcare & school

Insurance

Kids’ activities

Everything else

Reset

Results are estimates for general information only — always verify with a professional or official source before acting on them.

How to use the Family Budget Calculator

1 Enter Household income (net)
2 Enter Housing
3 Enter Groceries
4 Enter Transport
5 Enter Childcare & school
6 Enter Insurance
7 Enter Kids’ activities
8 Enter Everything else
9 Press Calculate. You get Family keeps each month, Savings rate, and every intermediate step stays visible under “How is this calculated?”
10 Change one number at a time to see what moves the result — that is usually the most useful thing a calculator can tell you.

Worked examples

Real numbers run through this calculator. Open any example to load it into the form above and change it.

One child in full-time childcare

$6,000 net household income with $900 a month of childcare.

You enter

Household income (net): $6,000.00
Housing: $1,800.00
Groceries: $800.00
Transport: $400.00
Childcare & school: $900.00
Insurance: $250.00
Kids’ activities: $200.00
Everything else: $600.00

You get

Family keeps each month: $1,050.00
Savings rate: 17.5%

Total costs of $4,950 leave the family $1,050 a month, a savings rate of 17.5%. Childcare is the second-largest line after housing, ahead of groceries.

Open this example in the calculator →

Two children and a bigger mortgage

$8,000 net household income with childcare nearly doubled.

You enter

Household income (net): $8,000.00
Housing: $2,400.00
Groceries: $1,000.00
Transport: $500.00
Childcare & school: $1,600.00
Insurance: $350.00
Kids’ activities: $300.00
Everything else: $900.00

You get

Family keeps each month: $950.00
Savings rate: 11.9%

Costs rise to $7,050, leaving $950 — about 11.9% of income. The extra $2,000 of earnings brought only a slightly smaller leftover than the first example, which is what makes childcare the decisive line in family budgets.

Open this example in the calculator →

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Frequently asked questions

Is childcare really a separate line from “everything else”?

Yes, and it usually deserves its own line rather than being buried. For many families childcare and school costs are the second-largest monthly outgoing after housing, and they behave differently from other spending: they are fixed for a term or a year and hard to reduce at short notice. Keeping them visible is what makes a family budget honest — hiding them in “everything else” is how families conclude that budgeting does not work.

Should the kids’ activities line include school trips and one-off costs?

Use a monthly average that includes them. Add up a year of clubs, kit, trips, birthday presents and school requests, then divide by 12 and put that figure in. Doing it this way means the expensive months (September, December) are already paid for rather than arriving as a shock. Do not include one-off purchases like a bicycle in full — spread them over the months they will serve.

We have two incomes. Do we enter both?

Enter the combined net household income, after tax — that is what the single income field expects. Then check what the result implies about your working lives: if childcare plus commuting plus the extra tax of a second income nearly equals the second salary, the household may be buying very little with those hours. That comparison is worth running with real numbers, not with assumptions.

Why does a comfortable income still produce a small leftover?

Because family costs scale with the family. A larger income usually comes with a larger home, more transport and more activities, so the leftover grows more slowly than the income does. This calculator does not judge that trade-off — it only shows whether the gap between income and costs is genuinely there. If the leftover is thin, the fastest realistic lever is usually housing or childcare, not groceries.