Creating a budget

Set a weekly or monthly spending limit for one category, or for all your spending, and see how much room is left.

Updated

A budget is a spending limit for a category over a week or a month. You create one from the Budgets page in the sidebar, either from scratch or from suggestions based on your recent spending.

Create a budget from scratch

  1. Open Budgets from the sidebar.
  2. Click Create Budget.
  3. In Budget Name, type a name, for example "Groceries". The name is required.
  4. In Budget Amount, enter your limit. It must be greater than 0.
  5. In Budget Period, choose Monthly (the default) or Weekly.
  6. In Category, pick the category to track. To track all your spending in one budget, leave it empty.
  7. Save the budget. A message confirms it was created.

A monthly budget starts on the 1st of the month. A weekly budget starts on Monday.

Start from suggestions

Click Suggestions to see budgets built from your last 3 months of spending. A category is suggested when it has at least 3 transactions and at least $50 of total spending over that time, and you see up to 8 suggestions. Each one shows a trend, such as Steady, or how much your spending went up or down compared with the previous 2 months.

Select the ones you want and click the Create button (it shows how many budgets you picked, for example Create 3 budgets), or click Create from scratch to fill in the form yourself.

How spending is counted

  • Only money going out counts. Refunds and deposits do not reduce what you spent.
  • A transaction counts when its date falls inside the current period, from the first day to the last day.
  • Each budget belongs to one account group and only counts spending from the accounts in that group.
  • Amounts are added as recorded, with no conversion between currencies. A US dollar purchase counts at its face value.

Each budget card shows what is left (for example "$120 left"), how much you are over if you passed the limit, and the days left in the period. At the top of the page you see Total Budgeted, Total Spent and Remaining.

Unspent money does not roll over

Every period starts fresh. If you spend less than your limit this month, the leftover amount is not added to next month's budget.

Edit or delete a budget

  • To change a budget, click Edit budget on its card, make your changes and click Save Changes. The start date stays the same.
  • To remove one, click Delete budget on its card, then Delete to confirm. Deleting is permanent and cannot be undone.

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