Monthly Car Budget
Find how much monthly car payment your income supports.
About Monthly Car Budget
Your transport budget is a set share of income. Subtracting the ongoing gas, insurance and maintenance leaves the room available for a monthly car payment. Dealers pitch the payment alone, but the honest budget also reserves room for the running costs that always follow.
Formula
Monthly Car Budget
Payment cap = income x budget% - gas - insurance - maintenance
- budget percent
- Share of income commonly spent on transport, about 15%
Worked example
With the default values below, Monthly Car Budget returns Transport Budget of $675.00. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Monthly incomeminimum 0
- 4,500
- Transport budget percentaccepts 0–100 %
- 15 %
- Gas per monthminimum 0
- 150
- Insurance per monthminimum 0
- 90
- Maintenance per monthminimum 0
- 60
Results
- Transport Budget
- $675.00
- Other Car Costs
- $300.00
- Max Payment Affordable
- $375.00
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2Monthly Car Budget
- 3Transport Budget= 675.00
- 4Other Car Costs= 300.00
- 5Max Payment Affordable= 375.00
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 5 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax or compounding frequency into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 2 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is Monthly Car Budget calculated?
Payment cap = income x budget% - gas - insurance - maintenance Your transport budget is a set share of income. Subtracting the ongoing gas, insurance and maintenance leaves the room available for a monthly car payment.
Why does Monthly Car Budget matter?
Dealers pitch the payment alone, but the honest budget also reserves room for the running costs that always follow.
What values do I need to enter?
This calculator takes 5 inputs: Monthly income, Transport budget percent, Gas per month, Insurance per month, Maintenance per month. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.