Fixed commitments
What must be paid?
Rent or mortgage, insurance, utilities, school fees, loan repayments and subscriptions. These form the base a lender starts from.
CALCULATOR
Where is the money actually going?
Lenders will look at your spending. It is better if you have looked first.
RUN THE NUMBERS
Build a budget you can actually check
Add what comes in and what goes out at whatever frequency you actually pay it. Everything is converted to a monthly figure, and the surplus is turned into the loan it would service.
What comes in
What goes out
What a surplus would support
Monthly surplus
$2,960
a month
That is 29.1% of what comes in.
- Income
- $10,183per month
- Expenses
- $7,223per month
- Over a year
- $35,520
- Would service a loan of
- $491,067at 6.05% over 30 years
Where the money goes
- Rent or mortgage$3,380
- Groceries$1,300
- Eating out and entertainment$780
- Transport, fuel and tolls$563
- Annual costs — rego, holidays, gifts$400
- Per week
- $683
- Per fortnight
- $1,366
- Per year
- $35,520
What this calculation assumes
- Amounts are converted to a monthly figure using the frequency you set for each line: weekly at 52 a year, fortnightly at 26, quarterly at four.
- The starting categories and figures are a prompt, not a benchmark. They are not what anyone should be spending, and they are not what a lender expects to see.
- Nothing entered here is saved or sent anywhere. It stays in your browser, and it is gone when you close the page.
- The loan a surplus would service is an illustration on the rate and term you set. It is not a borrowing capacity — a lender starts from its own expense benchmark, not from your budget.
- Annual and irregular costs — registration, insurance excesses, holidays, gifts, repairs — are the ones people leave out. A budget that ignores them looks healthier than it is.
WHAT IT TELLS YOU
A budget is the foundation of every lending conversation
Before a lender assesses you, it wants to see that your income comfortably covers your commitments with room to spare. Before you apply, it is worth knowing that yourself.
Lenders review recent bank statements as part of an application. Spending patterns matter: regular gambling transactions, undisclosed loan repayments, buy-now-pay-later commitments and unexplained large transfers all attract questions.
The useful exercise is not producing an optimistic budget for the application. It is understanding your real position, then tidying what genuinely needs tidying in the months before you apply.
WHAT MOVES THE NUMBER
What to map
Variable spending
Where does the rest go?
Groceries, transport, dining, entertainment and the irregular costs that never appear in a monthly average until you look back over a year.
Buffer and savings
What is left over?
Surplus after everything else is what services a new loan. A genuine buffer is also what gets a household through a rate rise or a period without income.
READING THE RESULT
An estimate is a starting point, not an answer
What the calculation covers
- A picture of income against spending — across the categories you enter.
- Your genuine monthly surplus — which is what a new repayment has to come from.
- Where spending concentrates — which is usually the most useful output.
What a lender does differently
- Lenders apply a benchmark — using the higher of your declared expenses and a standard figure.
- Statements are reviewed directly — declared spending is checked against what they show.
- Credit limits count, not balances — an unused card still reduces capacity.
- Buy-now-pay-later is visible — and is treated as a commitment by many lenders.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Questions about this calculation
Will a lender use my actual living expenses?
They use the higher of what you declare and a benchmark figure for a household of your size and income. Declaring unrealistically low expenses does not increase your capacity — it prompts questions.
The benchmark exists precisely because self-reported expenses tend to be optimistic.
How far back do lenders look at my statements?
Commonly three months, and sometimes longer where income is variable or the application is complex.
It is worth assuming everything in that window will be looked at and asked about.
Does buy-now-pay-later affect my application?
It can. Many lenders treat these arrangements as ongoing commitments, and frequent use can also read as reliance on short-term credit.
Clearing and closing them before applying is generally the cleaner position.
How long before applying should I tidy my spending?
At least three months, so the statements a lender reviews reflect the improved position rather than the old one.
The changes worth making are the substantive ones: clearing small debts, reducing card limits and avoiding new commitments.
OTHER CALCULATORS
Other numbers worth running
GET IN TOUCH
Want the estimate checked against real lender policy?
Would rather talk it through?
(02) 9659 1694Important information
This page explains a calculation. Any figures you produce from it are estimates based on the assumptions described, not a quote, an offer of credit, or an indication that finance will be approved.
The information on this page is general in nature. It has been prepared without taking your objectives, financial situation or needs into account, so it is not personal advice and you should consider whether it is appropriate for you before acting on it.
Any rates, figures or examples shown are indicative only. Lending is subject to approval, and lender eligibility criteria, terms, conditions, fees and charges apply. Talk to us about what your own circumstances allow.