Christian Budget Planner: Your One-Page Financial Plan
A monthly budget that fits on one page you can sign. Seven buckets take your real numbers, giving included, and the page tells you whether the month fits inside your income. Drag the sliders until it matches the month you actually live, then unlock the printable sheet with your email.
Your Numbers
Pull up your last three months of bank statements and use the real averages. Type a number or drag the slider; every bucket updates the plan as you move it.
Does It Fit Inside Your Income?
Your Whole Plan in One Bar
Your monthly take-home, drawn to scale, split across the seven buckets. When they fit inside your income, the pale slice on the right is your margin. When they run over, the dashed line marks where your income actually ends.
Frequently Asked Questions
What percentage of take-home pay should go to housing in Canada?
A common range is 25% to 35% of take-home pay, and lenders work to a similar test on gross income. In Toronto, Vancouver and much of southern Ontario, plenty of households are well above 35% because that is what a roof costs, which is worth naming rather than treating as a failure. The higher housing runs, the less room every other bucket has, so the giving and savings numbers become decisions made under real pressure.
Should I budget on gross or take-home income?
Take-home. This planner works from the number that actually lands in your account, because that is the money you can assign. Gross income matters for RRSP room, for a mortgage application, and for anyone who tithes on gross, and the tithe calculator on this site shows both bases side by side.
Should I pay off my credit card or put money in my TFSA first?
Take any employer match on your RRSP or pension first, because a 50% match returns 50% the day it lands. After that, a balance at 19.99% or higher beats almost any investment return you can count on, so clearing it comes before filling a TFSA. Keep a $1,000 buffer in cash while you do it, or the next repair goes straight back on the card.
How big should my emergency fund be?
Start with $1,000 in a separate high-interest savings account, then build toward three months of essentials, which this planner adds up from housing, food, transport and debt payments. Three months is the floor. On one income, with dependents, or in commission or contract work, four to six months is safer, and the emergency fund calculator sizes that in more detail.
What goes in a one-page financial plan?
Your take-home income, the seven buckets it is divided into, the margin left over, your giving and savings rates, the order your savings dollars go in, one goal for the next twelve months, four review dates, and a place to sign it. Anything that does not fit on the page is detail you will not read again.
How do I build a monthly budget I will actually keep?
Use real averages from your last three months rather than the numbers you would prefer, put giving and savings in the plan before the leftovers, and give every dollar of margin a job. Then print the page, sign it, and set the four review dates. A plan you decided once and review quarterly survives a real month; a spreadsheet you rebuild every payday does not.