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.

Where the month’s money went

Jot each thing down as you spend it, with a tag on the end. The tag keeps out of the sum, so the line still shows what you paid, and any line can be totalled with the others that share its tag, wherever they ended up in the list.

calc

# September spending

£42.80 supermarket #food gives £42.80

£12.50 lunch out #food gives £12.50

£68 train pass #travel gives £68.00

£9.99 streaming #fun gives £9.99

£23.40 taxi home #travel #fun gives £23.40

Food: total of #food gives £55.30

Travel: total of #travel gives £91.40

Out late: total of #travel #fun gives £23.40

count of #food gives 2

Food less the £10 voucher: total of #food - £10 gives £45.30

A line can carry more than one tag, as the taxi does, and naming two tags together picks out the lines that carry both. average of, count of, min of and max of work the same way, so you can see what a typical shop costs as well as the total. A tag total stands where an amount does, as the last line shows, so you can carry on calculating from it. See Tags.

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 pm

gym = £34 pcm

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 * 12 - £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. Write the period however you like: a month, pm and pcm all mean the same thing. A year of the monthly plan set against the annual one compares the two directly. /workday counts five days to the week, which suits anything you only buy on work days. See Prices per unit and Rent and pay shorthand.

A shopping list that adds itself up

Write the list the way you would on paper, with a bullet, what you’re buying and the price. Put total on the line below and Varlig adds the section above it.

calc

# Weekly shop

- 6 bananas @ 18p gives £1.08

- 2 pints of milk at 65p gives £1.30

- 500g pasta 3 packs at £1.10 each gives £3.30

- oat milk x3 £1.90 each gives £5.70

- 24 cans @ 45p gives £10.80

total gives £22.18

A count before @ or at is how many you’re buying, and a size written first, as in 500g pasta, describes the item rather than adding to it. A # heading or a --- line starts the next section, so a second list further down gets its own total. See Shopping and Adding up the lines above.

Typing up a statement

Rows copied off a bank statement or an invoice keep their own wording. A row in capitals, a description joined with & or per, a minus sign written against its amount and a reference number all leave the figure alone.

calc

# Direct debits this month

DIRECT DEBIT REF 4471 £62.40 gives £62.40

Netflix -£10.99 gives -£10.99

broadband & line rental £32.00 gives £32.00

Invoice #123: £250 gives £250.00

total gives £333.41

The refund keeps its minus sign, so the total is what actually left the account. See Words beside an amount.

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.

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, and £97 between 6 of us gives £16.17.
Spread a big bill: £3,603.91 in 9 instalments gives £400.43, and 12 payments of £50 adds a plan up to £600.00.
Read a sale sign as it’s written: £110.40 with a third off gives £73.60, and £5 off £29 gives £24.00.
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.
Tag the lines you want to watch, such as #food or #kids, and put total of #food at the bottom. See Tags.