50/30/20 Rule
A budgeting shorthand: roughly 50% of take-home pay to needs, 30% to wants, 20% to savings and debt repayment.
The 50/30/20 rule is a starting grid, not a law: half your take-home pay covers needs (housing, power, groceries, transport), 30% covers wants, and 20% goes to savings and extra debt payments.
In New Zealand’s main centres, housing costs often break the 50% line on their own — which doesn’t make the rule useless, it makes it a diagnostic. If needs are consuming 65%, that is worth knowing explicitly rather than feeling vaguely.
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