The Budget tab at a glance

What the Budget tab is for

The Budget tab is a month-by-month tracker of what you actually earn and spend, measured against the targets you set for each category. It answers a simple question: "In this month, did I stay within what I meant to spend?"

It is deliberately kept separate from your retirement forecast. Setting a budget here does not change your projection — the forecast is your long-range plan, and the budget is your day-to-day reality check. (When you're ready, you can pour your real spending into the plan — see Use your real spending in the forecast.)

Set a monthly target per category

A target is the amount you intend to spend in a category each month — for example, $600 for Groceries or $1,800 for Housing. In the Monthly targets section, type an amount next to any category. That target then applies to every month.

Targets work in every version of the app, signed in or not. You don't need an account just to set targets and sketch out a monthly budget.

Read the summary table: budget vs actual

For the month you're viewing, the summary table shows three numbers per category:

• Budget — the target you set.
• Actual — what you actually spent (from your transactions).
• Variance — the difference. Green means you came in under budget; red

(shown in parentheses) means you went over.

Above the table, four stat cards total it up: Budgeted, Actual spent, whether you're under or over budget overall, and Income − spend (your surplus or shortfall for the month). For what these figures mean and how to read them, see Understanding your numbers.

Pick a month — it jumps to your latest data

Use the Month picker at the top right to choose which month you're looking at. When you first open the tab after importing transactions, the app automatically jumps to the most recent month that has data, so you're not staring at an empty current month while your transactions sit in an earlier one. Once you pick a month yourself, it stops auto-jumping and stays where you put it.

Click a category to see the transactions behind it

Any category name in the summary table is a link. Click it to open a list of the individual transactions that make up that month's actual figure. From there you can re-file any transaction into a different category on the spot — handy for fixing a stray charge that landed in the wrong place. There's also an Uncategorized row for spending that hasn't been filed yet.

Where actual spending comes from

Actual figures come from transactions — either typed in by hand or imported from your bank. Importing and tracking transactions requires an account (it saves your data securely to the cloud) and is a premium feature. To get started, see Importing transactions.

New here? The glossary defines terms like target, actual, and variance.

This is an educational tool to help you see your money clearly — not financial or tax advice.