The conscious spending plan is Ramit Sethi's. He introduced it in his book I Will Teach You to Be Rich and explains the four buckets and their ranges on the site of the same name. This worksheet is an independent, interactive version of his method: it is not affiliated with Sethi or his company, and neither of them has reviewed or endorsed it.

Most budgets ask you to account for every coffee. Sethi's plan asks four bigger questions instead. How much of your take-home pay is already spoken for before the month begins? How much goes to the future you who will one day stop working? How much is set aside for the trips, weddings and repairs you can see coming? And how much is left to spend on whatever you like, with no guilt attached?

The four buckets and their ranges

Each bucket has a range, measured as a share of the pay that actually lands in your account each month:

• Fixed costs, 50 to 60%. Rent or mortgage, utilities, groceries, insurance, minimum debt payments and the quieter subscriptions. Sethi suggests padding this total by 15% for costs that creep up or slip your mind.
• Investments, about 10%. Retirement accounts such as a 401(k) or a Roth IRA, and other money you leave alone for years.
• Savings, 5 to 10%. An emergency fund first, then goals like a vacation, a wedding or a down payment.
• Guilt-free spending, 20 to 35%. Dinners out, concerts, clothes, the hobby. It is what makes the plan livable.

The ranges are rules of thumb. Sethi says fixed costs can climb to 65 or 70% in an expensive city, as long as the other buckets make room. What matters is how the four fit together, because they share one paycheck: when one grows, another has to shrink.

How this worksheet works

Type your monthly take-home pay into the slip at the top, or tap a starting figure. The pay pours out as four streams, one per bucket, and each stream leaves the slip as wide as that bucket's share. Small gold marks above each bucket show the width its range allows, so a stream spilling past its marks is over, and one that falls inside the inner marks is being squeezed.

Fill the first three buckets by tapping the lines you pay, then replace each starting guess with your own figure; the sheet labels a guess until you do. Guilt-free spending is the remainder, the way Sethi frames it, so you never type it in. The sheet also turns it into a weekly amount, which is easier to hold in your head than a monthly one.

Then read the squeeze. The sheet finds the bucket running furthest past its range and the one pushed furthest under its floor, and works out how many dollars would have to move to fix the worst of it. In the sample plan, fixed costs at 65% of a $5,000 paycheck leave guilt-free spending at 18%, and the sheet says that moving $100 brings it up to its floor. It also names the biggest single line inside the bucket doing the squeezing, which is usually rent.

What the evidence says, and what it doesn't

No study has tested Sethi's exact percentages. They come from years of coaching, not a trial, so treat them as a starting point, not a verdict.

Parts of the method rest on firmer ground. The plan runs on automation: Sethi wants transfers to leave your checking account the day after payday, so saving never waits on willpower, and the best evidence for that instinct comes from retirement plans. When one large US employer switched its 401(k) to automatic enrollment, participation rose sharply, and many new hires kept whatever contribution rate and fund the plan picked for them. Defaults do much of the work that good intentions cannot.

The guilt-free bucket has support too. A review of research on money and happiness suggested that money's surprisingly weak link to happiness may come partly from the way people spend it, and it recommended buying experiences, spending on other people and choosing many small pleasures over a few big ones. Naming what that money is for, as this sheet asks, is one way to keep it aimed at what you value.

The four buckets also line up with how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau defines financial well-being: control over day-to-day finances, the capacity to absorb a shock, being on track to meet your goals, and the freedom to make choices that let you enjoy life. That last one is guilt-free spending under another name.

This sheet is a planning aid, not financial advice. Your figures stay in your own sheet, with no bank connection.

When to use it

A new year is a natural moment to build the plan, and so is a raise, a move, a new job or a rent increase. After that, glance at it each month before the transfers go out.

For a simpler split, The 50/30/20 Budget cuts pay three ways. If your savings bucket has to cover known bills that arrive once or twice a year, The Sinking Funds Shelf gives each one its own jar. And if you are not sure what your fixed costs really add up to, a month in The Receipt File will show you.