Set spending limits for each category, track your progress throughout the period, and get visual feedback when you're approaching or exceeding your targets.
The Budget feature lets you assign spending (or income) targets to your categories and monitor how actual transactions compare against those targets. Budgets support multiple time periods, per-month adjustments, and automatic parent-category aggregation so you always have a clear picture of where your money is going.
- Navigate to Budget > Expenses (or Budget > Income)
- Find the category you want to budget
- Enter the amount directly in the inline input next to the category name
- The budget is saved automatically
Tip: You can set budgets on both parent and child categories. Parent categories will aggregate their children's values automatically.
Each category can have its own budget period:
| Period | Description |
|---|---|
| Weekly | Resets every week |
| Monthly | Resets on your configured start day each month |
| Quarterly | Resets every three months |
| Yearly | Resets annually |
When you switch a category's period, the amount is automatically pro-rated. For example, changing a monthly budget of £100 to yearly will auto-convert it to £1,200.
Note: The budget start day is configurable in Settings. If you set it to the 15th, your monthly budget period runs from the 15th to the 14th of the next month.
Toggle between expense and income budgets using the tabs at the top of the Budget page.
Expense budgets work as spending limits:
- Under budget = good (green)
- Over budget = concerning (red)
Income budgets work as earning targets:
- Exceeding the target = good (green)
- Under the target = concerning (red/orange)
Sometimes your spending changes — a holiday month, a one-off expense, or a permanent lifestyle change. Per-month adjustments let you change budget values from a specific month onwards without affecting historical data.
- Click the Adjust budgets from this month button
- A confirmation dialog explains that current values will be saved as a new baseline from this month onwards
- Modify the budget amounts as needed
- Previous months retain their original values
Note: When viewing an adjusted month, a notice appears indicating that custom values are in effect.
To revert an adjustment, remove it from the same interface. An undo notification appears for 8 seconds after making an adjustment, allowing you to reverse it immediately.
Warning: Removing an adjustment reverts all categories to the values from the previous baseline. Make sure this is what you intend.
Parent categories automatically display the sum of:
- Their own directly-set budget (if any)
- All children's budgets
A "Total" hint appears below the input to indicate the aggregated value. The "Spent" column also aggregates spending from all child categories.
This means you can budget at whatever level of detail suits you — set individual amounts on children, or a single lump sum on the parent.
At the top of the Budget page, four summary cards provide an at-a-glance overview:
- Total Budgeted — sum of all category budgets for the current period
- Total Spent — sum of all spending against budgeted categories
- Remaining — difference between budgeted and spent
- Categories with Budget — how many categories have a budget assigned
Each category displays a color-coded progress bar showing spending relative to the budget:
| Usage | Color | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 0–60% | Green | Well within budget |
| 60–80% | Yellow | Approaching limit |
| 80–100% | Orange | Nearing limit |
| >100% | Red | Over budget |
For income budgets, the colors are inverted — green indicates you've exceeded your income target, which is a positive outcome.
- Categories — budget targets are assigned per category
- Dashboard — budget tiles show at-a-glance progress on the home screen
- Reports — the budget report compares budgeted vs actual across periods
- Budget period — default period for new budgets (weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly)
- Budget start day — which day of the month the budget period begins