LearnVest 50/30/20 Budgeting Pie Chart
via My Money Blog:
LearnVest is (yet another) online financial advisor, but they are more focused on money management and life planning than nitpicking asset allocation details. Founder Alexis Von Tobel’s book Financially Fearless is on my (long) reading list, and here is one reason why – Per this Businessweek article, their budgeting advice is based on splitting up your take-home pay into three major categories with their 50/20/30 plan:
- 50% towards Essentials, which includes housing, transportation, utilities and groceries.
- 20% towards Savings, which can be retirement accounts, emergency funds, or debt payments.
- 30% towards Lifestyle Choices, which are whatever things you value and make you happy. Eating out, shopping, childcare, cell phone plans, entertainment, and so on.
This is an interesting way to make people streamline their budgets. I don’t recall any other personal finance book breaking things down like this. 20% is a pretty good starting point for savings, and I like that there is explicit room for the fun stuff. (Though the fact that “childcare” is under Lifestyle Choices may be somewhat controversial. If you pay for daycare, it is not uncommon for that to be a huge chunk of your expenses.)
LearnVest has several free features and mobile app, including a Mint.com-like app that tracks your spending and matches it up with their 50/20/30 pie chart. However, they will try to upsell you a more personalized advice packages with Certified Financial Planners. Their target demographic is young professional women, but I didn’t really notice when using it briefly so far. Anyone else use them for longer?
