Penny Payday
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Paycheck budget calculator

Type your check, the bills due before your next payday, and what you want to set aside. You get one number: what you can spend each day until payday.

Filled in with a made-up example. Type over it with yours.

$
What lands in your account, after taxes and deductions.
Bills due before your next payday
Only bills due before the next check lands. A bill due after it belongs to the next check.
$
Savings, a goal, a debt payoff. Use 0 if not this time.
Planned spending until payday
Things you know you'll buy. Penny calls these envelopes.
Today counts. Payday doesn't: the new check lands that day.
$0
a day

Arithmetic on the numbers you typed, not financial advice. Nothing you type leaves this page.

Penny does this every day. Log a spend and the number moves. Overspend and the days left re-split what's left. Payday comes and she plans the new check.

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How the math works

It's the same arithmetic Penny uses, in its simplest form:

  1. Start with your take-home check.
  2. Take out the bills due before your next payday.
  3. Take out what you set aside and what you plan to spend.
  4. Divide what's left by the days until payday, and round down to a whole dollar.

That number covers everything not already on the list: lunch, a coffee, a Target run. Spend under it and the check lasts to payday.

Made-up example
Take-home check$1,240
Bills before payday: rent part $450, phone $65, car insurance $140−$655
Set aside−$60
Planned: groceries $160, gas $70−$230
Left for day to day$295
÷ 14 days = $21.07, rounded down$21 a day
Left over at payday (14 × $21 = $294)$1

Why round down?

So the days never add up to more than you have. Rounding $21.07 up to $22 would spend $308 over 14 days, $13 more than the $295 that's there. Rounding down leaves a dollar or two at the end instead.

Which bills count?

Only the ones due before your next check lands. If you're paid every two weeks, that's usually about half your monthly bills, but rarely exactly half: rent due on the 1st can land on one check while the other carries almost nothing. Our biweekly paycheck guide shows how to even that out.

What if the number is $0?

Then bills and plans take the whole check, or more. That's not a failure of the plan; it's the gap, found on day one instead of the night before payday. The levers are the same for everyone: a bill that can move to the next check, a smaller set-aside this time, less planned spending, or extra money coming in. Which one is your call.

What this calculator doesn't do