How to make a Sankey diagram of your take-home pay.

The month we start from

One payslip: take-home pay of $3,850, paid on the 28th. And one month of bank lines, as the statement prints them.

The seven steps

1. 1

   Start from what you already have

   Two numbers, both already in your hands: the take-home pay figure on one payslip, and a month of transactions from your bank or budgeting app. Most banking apps and budget apps export a CSV; if yours does not, reading the last month off your statement works the same.

   Use take-home, not gross, for the main diagram. Gross pay is what the payroll department sees; the Sankey you want to make is about the money that is actually yours to split.

2. 2

   Group the month into 6 to 10 buckets

   This is the real work, and it happens before any tool touches the data. A month has dozens of card lines; a diagram that draws each one is unreadable. Go down the list and write each line against a bucket name you would say out loud: rent, groceries, eating out, transport, subscriptions.

   Six to ten buckets keeps every ribbon thick enough to label. Aim for one bucket you could defend to a stranger: not shopping but fun & shopping, not misc but left in checking.

3. 3

   Add up each bucket, then write one line per bucket

   Sum the lines in each bucket once, then write one flow line per bucket: source, amount in brackets, target. One line draws one ribbon. There is no other syntax to learn.

   Amounts keep the notation you type. $1,450 stays $1,450 on the diagram and in the exported file.

   The month, grouped and summed, as flow lines

   • Take-home pay [$1,450] Rent
   • Take-home pay [$520] Groceries
   • Take-home pay [$210] Utilities
   • Take-home pay [$180] Transport
   • Take-home pay [$240] Eating out
   • Take-home pay [$65] Subscriptions
   • Take-home pay [$145] Insurance
   • Take-home pay [$330] Fun & shopping
   • Take-home pay [$500] Savings
   • Take-home pay [$210] Left in checking
4. 4

   Balance the picture

   Every dollar of take-home pay should arrive somewhere. If the buckets do not sum to your payslip figure, the difference is a real thing: money still sitting in checking, a credit card balance that grew, a transfer you forgot. Add it as its own line, named for what it is.

   That is why the example above has a left in checking node. The diagram balances because the month actually balanced, and the reading stays honest.

5. 5

   If you want gross pay in the picture

   Some people want the tax slice visible, which is a fair want — it is a striking number. The way to do it is one more stage on the left: gross pay flows out to tax & withholdings and to payroll deductions, and the remainder arrives as take-home pay.

   Keep it to one gross stage. Splitting tax into five sub-nodes turns a budget diagram into a payroll audit.

6. 6

   Export at the size where it is going

   Theme, ribbon curve, label position and export size are controls beside the canvas, and each redraws the diagram as you move it. Square suits an image post; deck size, 1600 by 900, suits a document or a slide.

   A watermarked PNG download is free, with no account. Clean PNG and SVG come with a Pass.

7. 7

   Next month, paste and re-run

   The buckets you just decided are the part worth keeping. Save the diagram, and next month replace the amounts in the same lines rather than starting over.

   Node order, theme, labels and export size stay exactly where they were, so the two months compare honestly. The month you just replaced is kept as a dated snapshot.

What the buckets look like once grouped

The same month, with every card line folded into a bucket. The sums reach exactly $3,850 — including the part that stayed in checking.

What those lines draw

Nothing was retyped for this picture. It is the 10 lines above, drawn at square size, which suits an image post.

The gross-pay variant

If you want the tax slice in the picture, it costs one extra stage on the left and three more lines.

Explaining a business's money instead of your own? The same method works line for line — see how to turn an income statement into a Sankey diagram.

Where it goes wrong

• Starting from gross pay

  A Sankey of gross pay becomes a diagram about withholding, not about your life. Start from take-home; if you want the tax slice, add one gross stage on the left, as in the sidebar above.

• One line per transaction

  A month of card lines is 40 ribbons, most of them hairline. The grouping step is not optional: buckets first, one line per bucket after.

• Leaving savings off the diagram

  Savings and investments are where money goes, so they belong on the right like any other destination. Omitting them makes the month look fully spent when it was not.

• Hiding the imbalance

  If your buckets do not reach your take-home figure, name the gap: left in checking, credit card, overdraft. A diagram that quietly does not add up is worse than one that shows the drift.

Questions

How do I make a Sankey diagram of my take-home pay?

Take one payslip's net figure and one month of transactions, group the transactions into 6 to 10 buckets, then write one line per bucket: bucket name, amount, and take-home pay as the source. Paste the lines into the studio.

What do I do with gross pay and tax?

Leave them out of the main diagram and start from take-home. If you want them visible, add one stage: gross pay flowing to tax & withholdings, payroll deductions, and take-home pay.

How many categories should a budget Sankey have?

Six to ten. Fewer hides decisions you actually make; more makes the ribbons too thin to label and the picture unreadable at a glance.

Can I paste my bank export directly?

A block of cells pasted in source-amount-target form is parsed into flows straight away. A raw transaction list needs grouping first; if a paste is too messy to parse, there is one assisted mapping pass that proposes the grouping for you to review and correct before anything draws.

What if I spent more than I earned?

Add the gap as a source on the left, flowing into the spending, named for what it is: credit card or overdraft. The picture then balances and shows the month honestly.

What does it cost?

Building, styling and a watermarked PNG are free, with no account. A Pass is $12 for a week, $39 for a quarter or $99 for a year, paid once, and buys saving, re-running and clean PNG or SVG export.

Other starting points

• Personal budget Sankey templateTake-home pay split into rent, living costs, savings and investments.
• Monthly P&L Sankey templateRevenue split into gross profit, costs and operating profit.
• Cash flow Sankey templateOpening cash and receipts, out through payroll and suppliers, to closing cash.

Passes are paid once: $12 for a week, $39 for a quarter, $99 for a year. A Pass buys saving, re-running, saved themes and clean PNG or SVG export.