Ask someone where their salary went last month and you'll usually hear about rent, EMIs and maybe a big purchase. What rarely comes up is the coffee, the late-night food order, the cab instead of the metro, the app subscription you forgot about. Individually they're small. Together they can be the difference between saving 5% and saving 20% of your income.
What a money leak looks like
A leak is a spend that is frequent, small and mostly unplanned. A ₹250 food order three times a week is about ₹3,250 a month — nearly ₹39,000 a year. Put the same amount into a SIP every month and it becomes a meaningful sum over ten years.
- Food delivery and eating out
- Cabs and auto rides that could have been planned
- Subscriptions you no longer use
- Impulse shopping from sales and notifications
- Convenience charges and late fees
The 50/30/20 split
A simple starting point: about half your take-home pay for needs, up to 30% for wants, and at least 20% for savings and investments. It isn't a rule you must follow exactly — in a high-rent city needs may be higher — but it gives every rupee a job and makes the trade-offs visible.
- Needs 50%Rent, groceries, bills, EMIs
- Wants 30%Eating out, shopping, trips
- Savings 20%SIPs, emergency fund, prepayments
How to find yours in a month
- Log every spend for 30 days — the habit matters more than perfect categories
- Start with your real balances: bank accounts, cash, wallets and credit cards
- At month end, look at categories by count, not just amount — frequent small spends stand out
- Pick one leak to cut by half next month, not five
- Move the money you saved to savings on the same day, so it doesn't get spent elsewhere
How Welthr helps
The expense tracker groups categories into needs, wants and savings, shows your monthly split against 50/30/20, and highlights categories where small spends add up. Budgets by category show how close you are to each limit, and account balances update as you log, so your net worth stays accurate too.