How budgeting works
FlyBudget uses zero-based budgeting: at the start of each month you give every dollar you have a job, until there's nothing left to assign. Then, as the month goes on, you can see how much is left in each category.
The Budget page
Budget shows one month at a time. The arrows move between months, and Today comes back to this one.
Each row is a category. Income categories come first, then expense categories grouped by kind:
- Fixed: the same every month, like rent, insurance or your phone bill.
- Flexible: what changes with your choices, like groceries, eating out or shopping.
- Non-Monthly: bills that come a few times a year, like car maintenance or gifts.
- Savings/Investments: money you put aside.
For each category you see:
- Planned: how much you expect to earn or spend this month.
- Actual: what came in or went out this month, from your on-budget accounts.
- Remaining: what's left. For spending it's green while you're within the plan and red once you're over; for income it's what you still expect to receive.
A bar under each category fills as you spend: green, then amber when you're close to the plan, and red when you've gone over. Click the arrow next to a group to collapse it.
Categories with nothing planned or spent this month are tucked away: choose Show N inactive under a group to see them.
Planning an amount
Click a planned amount and type a new one; press Enter or click away to save, or Escape to cancel. While you're editing, a panel shows what you spent (or earned) in that category last month, your monthly average and a small history chart. Tick Apply amount to all future months to use the same amount from now on.
To Be Budgeted
The panel on the right starts with how much money still needs a job:
To Be Budgeted = income received this month + left over from earlier months − planned this month
"Left over from earlier months" is all the income you've received before this month, minus everything you planned for earlier months.
| It says | Which means |
|---|---|
| Left to budget | You have money without a job. Plan it into a category, or into savings. |
| Almost budgeted | Only a little is left (up to 2% of your planned income, or $500). |
| Fully budgeted | Every dollar has a job. That's the goal. |
| Over budget | You've planned more than you have. Lower some categories until it's back to zero. |
Below it, Summary, Income and Expenses tabs compare what you planned with what's actually happened this month.
Only on-budget accounts count. Investments, property and loans appear in your net worth but not here (see Accounts).
A category's page
Click a category's name to open its page: a chart of what you spent (or earned) in it over the last months, this month's planned, actual and remaining amounts, its transactions with the usual filters, and a summary (number of transactions, the largest and average, and the first and last dates).
Categories
Manage categories and groups in Settings → Categories:
- Create group for income or expenses, and Create Category inside a group.
- Edit a category to rename it, move it to another group, pick its emoji icon, and choose its kind (Fixed, Flexible, Non-Monthly or Savings/Investments).
- Drag categories and groups to reorder them.
- Delete a category and FlyBudget asks where its transactions should move.
A new budget starts with a set of common categories you can change freely.
A simple routine
- When you get paid, plan that income into your categories until To Be Budgeted is zero.
- As you spend, keep an eye on Remaining (the dashboard's Left to Spend shows the same for the whole month).
- If a category runs out, lower another one that has money left, so the total stays the same.
- At the end of the month, whatever you didn't plan carries over into next month's To Be Budgeted.