Financial wellbeing is about what you do with your pot of money. People who can confidently manage their money and plan their spend are financially well. It’s about making sure you can cover day-to-day expenses, plan for the future, and cope with the unexpected, enabling you to do the most with what you have. At Bank of Ireland we are committed to enabling our customers to thrive through our Financial Wellbeing program.
As part of our program we encourage people to use 50:30:20 budgeting.
The 50:30:20 budget rule is a simple way of managing your money, after tax, by setting aside:
- 50% of your take home income for needs
- 30% of your take home income for wants
- 20% of your take home income for savings.
Needs: 50% : Needs are those bills that you absolutely must pay and are the things necessary for survival
Wants: 30% : Wants include the good stuff. All the things you spend money on that are not essential.
Savings: 20%: Allocate 20% of your income to savings and investments. This includes adding money to an emergency fund in a savings account.
Applying the 50:30:20 rule enables people to manage their money and improve their financial wellbeing.
The Financial Wellbeing scale goes from Struggling – Stretched – Managing – Thriving. If you’re unsure about where you fall on that scale we have developed a simple Financial Healthcheck which, once completed, will provide you a score which corresponds with the above scale. Once you know where you fall on the Financial Wellbeing scale you can take steps to improve or capitalise on your money management skills.