Your money check-up
This is the lesson where it all clicked for me. One page, five numbers, and I finally knew where I stood.
You now know what money is, how income and expenses work, how to tell needs from wants, where your money goes, and how to grow your income. Time to put it together into one simple money check-up.
Five numbers
- Take-home income. What lands in your account each month. If your income changes month to month, use your lowest recent month, so you don’t plan with money you might not get.
- Fixed expenses. Rent, phone plan, subscriptions, repayments.
- Variable expenses. Food, transport, going out. Use what you found when you tracked your spending.
- Irregular expenses. Add up a year’s worth, then divide by 12.
- What’s left. Income minus the other three.
James’s check-up
Here’s what James found when he did his first check-up:
| Per month | |
|---|---|
| Take-home income | 250,000 |
| Fixed expenses | 120,000 |
| Variable expenses | 95,000 |
| Irregular expenses (360,000 a year ÷ 12) | 30,000 |
| What’s left | 5,000 |
5,000. That’s it. I wasn’t broke, but one bad week would have put me there. And I had no idea, because I’d never added it up.
James was breaking even. Not a crisis, but no room for surprises.
Now do yours
Your money check-up
Use rough monthly numbers. Nothing you type here is saved or sent anywhere.
What's left each month
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Fill in your numbers to see where you stand.
What your result means
- A surplus: good. The next step is to give that money a job, so it doesn’t quietly turn into spending.
- Breaking even: your first goal is a small buffer. Look at your variable expenses and money leaks first.
- A deficit: don’t panic, but act now. The gap is coming from savings or debt. Start with your wants and your variable expenses, and look at ways to grow your income.
Whatever you got, you now know your real number. Most people never work it out.
Level 1 review
Want to test yourself further? Help James outrun the money monsters in Money Run.
