Guide to Personal Finance (2024)

FAQs

What is the 80% rule personal finance? ›

The 80/20 budget is a simpler version of it. Using the 80/20 budgeting method, 80% of your income goes toward monthly expenses and spending, while the other 20% goes toward savings and investments.

The core areas of managing personal finance include income, spending, savings, investments, and protection. Smart personal finance involves developing strategies that include budgeting, creating an emergency fund, paying off debt, using credit cards wisely, saving for retirement, and much more.

The 60/30/10 budgeting method says you should put 60% of your monthly income toward your needs, 30% towards your wants and 10% towards your savings. It's trending as an alternative to the longer-standing 50/30/20 method. Experts warn that putting just 10% of your income into savings may not be enough.

The 50-30-20 rule recommends putting 50% of your money toward needs, 30% toward wants, and 20% toward savings. The savings category also includes money you will need to realize your future goals.

The Rule of 69 states that when a quantity grows at a constant annual rate, it will roughly double in size after approximately 69 divided by the growth rate. The Rule of 69 is derived from the mathematical constant e, which is the base of the natural logarithm.

#1 Don't Spend More Than You Make

When your bank balance is looking healthy after payday, it's easy to overspend and not be as careful. However, there are several issues at play that result in people relying on borrowing money, racking up debt and living way beyond their means.

There's plenty to learn about personal financial topics, but breaking them down can help simplify things. To start expanding your financial literacy, consider these five areas: budgeting, building and improving credit, saving, borrowing and repaying debt, and investing.

The simplest way to track your finances is to record each transaction in a notebook. Choose to use the notebook for spending only, or opt for a more detailed approach by logging how much you want to spend and what you end up spending.

One simple rule of thumb I tend to adopt is going by the 4-3-2-1 ratios to budgeting. This ratio allocates 40% of your income towards expenses, 30% towards housing, 20% towards savings and investments and 10% towards insurance.

What is the 70 20 10 rule for personal finance? ›

The 70-20-10 budget formula divides your after-tax income into three buckets: 70% for living expenses, 20% for savings and debt, and 10% for additional savings and donations. By allocating your available income into these three distinct categories, you can better manage your money on a daily basis.

The Rule of 120 (previously known as the Rule of 100) says that subtracting your age from 120 will give you an idea of the weight percentage for equities in your portfolio.

making $4,000 a month using the 75 10 15 method. 75% goes towards your needs, so use $3,000 towards housing bills, transport, and groceries. 10% goes towards want. So $400 to spend on dining out, entertainment, and hobbies.

Consider an individual who takes home $5,000 a month. Applying the 50/30/20 rule would give them a monthly budget of: 50% for mandatory expenses = $2,500. 20% to savings and debt repayment = $1,000.

The "pay yourself first" budgeting method has you put a portion of your paycheck into your retirement, emergency or other goal-based savings account before you spend any of it. When you add to your savings immediately after you get paid, your monthly spending naturally adjusts to what's left.

In investing, the 80-20 rule generally holds that 20% of the holdings in a portfolio are responsible for 80% of the portfolio's growth. On the flip side, 20% of a portfolio's holdings could be responsible for 80% of its losses.

The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. In other words, a small percentage of causes have an outsized effect.

The rule requires that you divide after-tax income into two categories: savings and everything else. As long as 20% of your income is used to pay yourself first, you're free to spend the remaining 80% on needs and wants. That's it; no expense categories, no tracking your individual dollars.

80% of your weekly tasks affect 20% of your future. 80% of grief is caused by 20% of people in your life. 80% of alarms will be set off by 20% of potential causes. 80% of the energy in a combustion engine produces 20% output.