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Budgets, bills and shared costs

Keep your budget, subscriptions and shared bills in a note where every figure has a name. Change one number and every total, share and percentage below it updates, so you can try out an idea without redoing the sums.

A monthly budget

Write each regular cost once and give it a name. Varlig adds them up, works out what’s left and tells you what share of your pay that is.

calc
# October budget
take home = £2,400
rent = £1,050
bills = £185
food = £320
transport = £95
going out = £150
spending = rent + bills + food + transport + going out gives £1,800.00
left over = take home - spending gives £600.00
left over is what % of take home gives 25%
holiday = £1,500
Months to save it: holiday / left over gives 2.5

Names can be several words long, so the note reads like your own list. is what % of turns two amounts into a percentage, and a label such as Months to save it: describes a line without becoming part of the maths. See Percentages and Labels.

What your subscriptions cost in a year

Monthly prices look small on their own. Write them the way they’re quoted, as £10.99 a month, add them up and convert the total to a year.

calc
# Subscriptions
streaming = £10.99 a month
music = £11.99 a month
cloud storage = £2.99 a month
gym = £34 a month
subscriptions = streaming + music + cloud storage + gym gives £59.97/month
subscriptions in £/year gives £719.64/year
# The music service offers an annual plan for £99
music * 1 year - £99 gives £44.88
# A flat white every working day, 46 weeks a year
coffee = £3.20/workday
coffee * 46 weeks gives £736.00

A price per month is a rate, so in £/year converts it and multiplying by a length of time gives a total. /workday counts five days to the week, which suits anything you only buy on work days. See Prices per unit.

Splitting a dinner bill

Four of you went out, but only three had wine. Share the food evenly, share the drinks among the people who drank, and add the tip to each share.

calc
# Friday dinner for four
food = £120
drinks = £48
total = (food + drinks) with 12.5% tip gives £189.00
split total among 4 people gives £47.25
# Sam didn't drink
food each = food / 4 gives £30.00
drinks each = drinks / 3 gives £16.00
sam = food each + 12.5% gives £33.75
others = food each + drinks each + 12.5% gives £51.75
sam + 3 * others gives £189.00

split … among 4 reads the way you’d say it. Adjustments apply from left to right, so + 12.5% adds the tip to each person’s whole share, and the last line checks that the shares cover the bill. See Splitting a bill and Chained changes.

Sharing house costs fairly

Three housemates, three rooms of different sizes. Split the rent by floor area and the bills equally.

calc
# Rent split by room size
rent = £2,100/month
big room = 16 m²
middle room = 12 m²
box room = 7 m²
all rooms = big room + middle room + box room gives 35 m²
rent * big room / all rooms gives £960.00/month
rent * middle room / all rooms gives £720.00/month
rent * box room / all rooms gives £420.00/month
bills = £240/month
split bills among 3 gives £80.00/month

Dividing one area by another cancels the units, leaving a plain share of the rent. To split costs by income instead, swap the room sizes for each person’s pay. See Arithmetic with units.

Discounts, tips and receipts

Check whether a sale is as good as it looks, and work back from a receipt to the price before VAT.

calc
# Winter coat in the sale
full price = £150
sale = full price with 30% off gives £105.00
checkout = sale with 10% off # extra at the till gives £94.50
checkout is what % off full price gives 37%
# A receipt that includes 20% VAT
£54 is 20% on what gives £45.00
# A £8.75 service charge on a £70 meal
£8.75 is what % of £70 gives 12.5%

with 30% off reads the way the label in the shop does. Two discounts in a row don’t add up: 30% off and then 10% off is 37% off, not 40%. is 20% on what works back to the price before VAT, and is what % of shows the rate behind a service charge. See Working backwards.

Make it your own

  • Pay yourself first: add savings = take home * 20% near the top and take it off before left over.
  • Compare two budgets in one note, such as renting alone and sharing, by putting a --- line between them. See Scope reset.
  • Round each person’s share up so nobody is short: (split total among 4) rounded up to nearest £1. See Rounding to a step.
  • Split a quick bill without naming anything: £168 split 4 ways gives £42.00 each.
  • Check a year of electricity in pence, the way the tariff is printed: 3,100 kWh * 24.5p/kWh + 53p/day * 1 year gives £953.08. See Cents and pence.
  • See what saving each month could grow to: £200 a month for 10 years at 5% gives £31,056.46. See Saving a regular amount.
  • Price a group outing in one line: 6 tickets at £14.50 each with 10% off. See Shopping: items, discounts, tax and tips.
  • Total a list of costs without adding every name: write total on the line below them. See Adding up the lines above.