Envelope Budget

The envelope method

Envelope budgeting is a zero-based approach: you take your monthly income and divide it into labelled envelopes, one per spending category. When an envelope is empty, you stop spending in that category until next month. Traditionally people used real cash envelopes; this tool does the same thing digitally, so it works for cards and transfers too.

Using this tool

1. Pick your currency and enter your monthly income.
2. Create an envelope for each category and set how much you allocate to it. Aim to bring Unallocated down to zero so every dollar has a job.
3. As you spend, log a transaction against the matching envelope with a short description and amount.
4. The fill bar shows how much of that envelope you've used. It turns amber past 75% and red once you overspend.

Reading the fill levels

• Green — comfortably within budget for that envelope.
• Amber — you've used more than 75%, so slow down.
• Red — the envelope is overspent; cover it by moving money from another envelope's allocation.

You can embed this util on your own site as a widget. Adding ?embed=1 to the URL loads a compact version with just the tool itself; no header, menu, or documentation. Paste this snippet into your HTML:

Copy snippet Adjust the height to taste.