Enter your recurring expenses
Add up to 20 different expenses. Your entries stay in this browser while you use the calculator.
How to use this calculator
Enter an expense amount and choose how often you pay it. For five $6 coffees per week, enter $30 and choose Weekly. Enter your own spending in the empty boxes.
Enter 0 if a cost does not apply. Optional fields may stay blank.
Each slice shows an expense’s share of your monthly total. Daily, weekly and yearly entries are converted to monthly equivalents.
What your results mean
Expense-by-expense breakdown
Find the pattern behind the purchase
A $15 subscription, a $6 coffee and a $120 annual membership use different billing periods. Looking at the charges individually makes comparison difficult. This calculator puts them on the same monthly and yearly basis, then shows which entered expenses contribute most.
Use it for a focused question: “What do my convenience purchases add up to?” or “How much do these recurring services cost together?” You can also build a broader expense list, but a partial list is not a complete household budget. A cost can be worthwhile even when its total is large.
The calculator starts with an empty expense row. Coffee and streaming amounts appear only in the labelled example graph. Enter your own expenses, then select Calculate.
Build an expense list you can trust
- Choose what you are measuring. A list of subscriptions answers a different question from a list of work-related costs. Give the list a clear purpose before adding expenses.
- Use amounts from your records. Check recent bills, receipts or transaction histories privately. Include the total you actually pay, including tax and fees when applicable. You do not need to upload records or connect a bank account here.
- Match the amount to the frequency. A monthly subscription price belongs with Monthly. A yearly membership bill belongs with Yearly. For purchases that vary by day, enter a representative weekly total with Weekly.
- Include each cost once. If coffee is already included in a weekly eating-out total, do not also add it as a separate expense. Count a shared bill using your own share when that is what you want to measure.
- Check that the period is representative. A holiday week or promotional first month may be unusually expensive or cheap. For an irregular category, average several comparable periods rather than assuming one unusual period repeats forever.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s spending assessment guide explains how receipts and account history can help establish actual spending. The calculator then converts the amounts you choose into comparable periods.
What to do with quarterly or four-week bills
For a $90 quarterly bill, enter $30 with Monthly frequency, or $360 with Yearly. A bill every four weeks is different from a monthly bill: using a 52-week year gives 13 four-week payments. A $10 four-week bill can therefore be entered as $130 Yearly. These are planning conversions; check the actual billing schedule for a specific year.
How the calculator turns your entries into totals
Every row is converted to an average monthly amount before the rows are added. All figures use the same dollar unit; the tool does not convert between currencies.
| Frequency | Monthly equivalent | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Daily | Amount × 365 ÷ 12 | $6 daily → $182.50/month |
| Weekly | Amount × 52 ÷ 12 | $30 weekly → $130/month |
| Monthly | Entered amount | $15 monthly → $15/month |
| Yearly | Amount ÷ 12 | $120 yearly → $10/month |
The combined monthly amount is multiplied by 12 for the yearly estimate and by 60 for the five-year projection. Calculations use the unrounded amounts; displayed dollar values are rounded to cents. As a result, adding rounded row values may occasionally differ from the displayed total by a cent.
Why weekly spending is more than four weeks per month
There are 52 weeks in the calculator’s planning year, spread over 12 months: about 4.33 weeks per month. Multiplying $30 by four gives $120, but the monthly equivalent here is $130. Using four weeks for every month would leave four weeks of annual spending out of the estimate.
Daily means every day
A $6 purchase every day is $2,190 per year. The same purchase on five days each week is $30 Weekly, or $1,560 per year. That $630 difference comes from frequency, not from a change in purchase price. Choose Weekly for a weekday pattern rather than treating it as a daily purchase.
Three examples that show different spending patterns
These examples use illustrative prices. They demonstrate the calculator’s arithmetic, not typical spending levels or recommended budgets.
1. Daily coffee and a monthly subscription
The illustrative graph uses $6 Daily for coffee and $15 Monthly for streaming; these are not entries in your empty expense list. Coffee contributes $2,190 per year and streaming contributes $180.
- Combined monthly equivalent: $197.50.
- Combined yearly cost: $2,370.
- Five-year projection: $11,850.
Coffee contributes about 92.4% of this particular list. That makes it the largest driver of the result; it does not mean coffee is necessarily the least valuable purchase.
2. Weekday coffee and a change in frequency
Five $6 coffees per week should be entered as $30 Weekly. Add the same $15 monthly streaming subscription. The combined estimate becomes $145 per month, $1,740 per year and $8,700 over five years.
Now compare three coffees per week: enter $18 Weekly and leave streaming unchanged. The result becomes $93 per month and $1,116 per year. The difference is $624 per year, or $3,120 over five years if the pattern stays unchanged. Any replacement drink costs would reduce the net savings and should be included in the alternative.
3. A membership that feels smaller because it is billed yearly
Combine a $120 Yearly membership with a $15 Monthly subscription. Together they average $25 per month, cost $300 per year and project to $1,500 over five years. The $10 monthly equivalent of the membership is useful for comparison, but the actual $120 charge still falls on its billing date.
Read the graph without losing the context
Each donut slice is the expense’s monthly equivalent divided by the combined monthly total. Because every expense has been converted consistently, the same shares apply to the annual estimate. A zero-amount row is excluded from the chart and itemized breakdown.
The live explanation identifies the largest entered expense and illustrates the effect of reducing its spending by half. This is a comparison, not a recommendation. A necessary expense can be the biggest slice, while a smaller expense may be easier to change.
Compare a change you could actually make
- Note the current yearly total and the inputs that produced it.
- Change one expense amount or frequency, leaving the other entries unchanged.
- Include any replacement cost in the new list.
- Subtract the new annual total from the original total to find the estimated reduction.
For the default coffee-and-streaming example, changing coffee from $6 Daily to $3 Daily lowers the combined yearly total from $2,370 to $1,275. The difference is $1,095 per year. If a replacement expense costs $20 per month, adding it to the new scenario makes the net reduction $855 per year instead.
What this result can—and cannot—tell you
A monthly equivalent is not a bill calendar. It smooths different billing periods into an average. Keep actual due dates separate when deciding whether money will be available for a particular payment.
The five-year number assumes repetition. It does not automatically model price increases, cancellations, leap years or changing habits. It is projected spending, not investment growth or a guaranteed amount you could save.
Only entered costs are included. Taxes and fees count when included in your amounts. The calculator does not add them independently. It also does not subtract refunds or reimbursements; use the net expense you want to measure.
Fixed debt payments need a separate payoff model. Entering a $200 monthly debt payment here projects $2,400 per year and $12,000 over five years. It does not know when the debt will be paid off or calculate the interest. Use Debt Freedom or Credit Card Cost for those questions.
An isolated purchase is not automatically recurring. Include it only if you intend to estimate a repeated pattern. For example, the Yearly setting assumes the entered amount repeats annually; it does not mark the expense as a one-time charge.
Questions about your expense list
Should I enter one coffee’s price or my weekly coffee total?
Use one coffee’s price with Daily only if it is a daily purchase. For five $6 coffees per week, enter $30 with Weekly. Amount and frequency must describe the same spending pattern.
Why does an annual bill appear as a monthly amount?
Dividing by 12 gives a comparable average. A $120 annual bill becomes $10 per month in the results, but you still need the full $120 when the actual bill is due.
Can I enter rent, groceries or other necessary expenses?
Yes, if they belong in the list you are measuring. Including an expense does not label it unnecessary. For variable spending, enter a representative amount and remember that a partial list is not a full budget.
What if a subscription price changes during the year?
This tool assumes a constant amount. For an annual estimate, add the actual or expected charges for the year and enter that total with Yearly. Its five-year projection still repeats that annual total, so it will not automatically follow a promotional or changing price schedule.
How many expenses can I add?
Up to 20. Name them separately so the graph and itemized breakdown remain useful. If you combine several costs into one row, the calculator cannot identify which component drives that grouped expense.
Are my entries saved when I leave?
No saved expense list is created in this version. Reloading or Reset starts with one empty expense row. The labelled graph is an illustrative example until you calculate your own entries. Calculator entries are processed on the page without an account or bank connection; advertising services are described in the Privacy Policy.
Which calculator should I use for a more specific question?
Use True Car Cost to separate vehicle expenses, Food Delivery Cost for meal costs and delivery extras, or True Hourly Pay to compare take-home pay with work costs and commute time.
Want to see all your hidden costs in one place?
Pro is planned to save your expense lists, compare scenarios, extend projections, create reports and bring your results into a personal Hidden Cost Dashboard and Hidden Cost Score.
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