Rent calculator: How much rent can I afford?

Rent is often the biggest expense in your budget, so it pays to check before you move into a new place whether you can actually afford it.

It's not always easy to work it out, so we've built these rent calculators to help you figure out:

How much rent can I afford based on my income?

If you want a very rough guide, then aim to spend no more than 30% of your after-tax income on rent. While it's not perfect, if you keep your rent to less than 30% of your income, then you should have enough leftover for your other expenses. You can use the simple rent calculator below to automatically estimate how much rent you can afford based on your after-tax income.

However, this does NOT take into account your specific lifestyle and goals, so if you want a better estimate of the rent you can actually afford, then you'll want to use our more detailed rent calculator.


Simple rent calculator based on your income


Income

$

Rent

$ 0

How much rent can I afford based on my income, lifestyle, and goals?

While people often use the "30% rule" to estimate how much rent they can afford based on their income, it's not quite the full story as everyone is different.

What if you're madly stashing cash for a wedding next year, or you're trying to save up a house deposit in three years' time? Compared to the average person, you're going to be funnelling a lot more money towards these goals, which means less money available for other things like rent.

Similarly, what if you've got a kid in childcare and you're burning through over $10k per year in childcare fees? Well, you're going to be directing more of each pay into your childcare bucket and you'll have less leftover for rent. When you're trying to work how much rent you can afford, you need to factor in these big lifestyle expenses like transport, travel, eating out, and childcare.

We've developed the first Australian rent calculator to take into account your income, your lifestyle, and your goals, to give you a more relevant estimate of how much rent you can really afford.

To be clear upfront, this calculator will generally give you a lower estimate than what most online rent calculators will spit out, but that's not necesarily a bad thing. It simply means you're getting a truer estimate of what you can actually afford and you're setting yourself up to achieve your financial goals as you're leaving enough money aside for them.


Rent calculator based on your income, lifestyle and goals


Income

$

Lifestyle

$0 per year

Goals

Goal 1
Goal 2
$
$
$
$

Rent

$ 0

How do I calculate rent per month?

Easily convert rent to daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly and yearly amounts using our rent calculator below. Just enter the known rent amount and frequency, then it will automatically convert it for you.


Rent converter


$

Rent converted

per day
per week
per fortnight
per 4-weeks
per month
per quarter
per 6-months
per year

Are you keen to save a house deposit in half the normal time?

Schedule a free 15-minute session to see how a financial coach can help you save more and achieve your financial goals while still living an amazing life today. We can develop a sustainable plan for your money that takes into account your goals and your lifestyle.