Core Features

Budgeting

Build a personalised monthly budget with custom categories, spending limits, rollover rules, and automatic progress tracking — all computed locally on your device.

Budget Overview — March 2026

Monthly budget

$2,180 / $2,400

Remaining

$220

Housing$1200 / $1500

Food & Groceries$380 / $400

Transport$140 / $200

Entertainment$95 / $80 ⚠️

Entertainment is over budget by $15

Why it matters

Without a budget, most people underestimate discretionary spending by 20–40%. A monthly budget creates a clear feedback loop: every transaction you log immediately moves a progress bar, creating real-time awareness before you overspend — not after.

Unlike bank apps that show you last month's damage after the fact, Spend Sense shows you a live view of the current month, updated with every logged purchase.

Setting up your budget

Open the Budget tab

Tap the bar chart icon in the bottom navigation. If this is your first time, you'll see an empty state with a prompt to create your first budget.

Enter your monthly income

This anchors all percentage-based recommendations. It's stored locally and never transmitted.

Add or edit categories

Tap Manage Categories to create custom categories, assign them an icon and color, and set a monthly spending limit. You can use the 50/30/20 template as a starting point.

Set rollover rules (optional)

Enable rollover on any category to carry unspent amounts forward into next month — useful for variable expenses like clothing or annual subscriptions.

The 50/30/20 template

Spend Sense includes a pre-configured 50/30/20 template based on your entered monthly income. Tap Use Template when creating a budget to auto-populate categories:

Bucket	Allocation	Includes
Needs	50%	Housing, utilities, groceries, transport, minimum debt payments
Wants	30%	Dining out, entertainment, hobbies, subscriptions, shopping
Savings / Debt	20%	Emergency fund, savings goals, extra debt repayments, investments

Tip

The 50/30/20 rule is a starting point, not a law. Many users reduce Wants to 20% and put 30% toward savings to accelerate financial goals.

Budget features reference

Feature	How it works
Custom categories	Create any category with a custom name, icon (500+ options), and color
Subcategories	Nest categories — e.g., Food > Groceries, Food > Dining Out
Monthly limits	Set a hard spending cap per category; progress bar turns red when exceeded
Rollover	Unspent amounts carry to next month (opt-in per category)
Budget templates	50/30/20 pre-built; custom templates you design can be saved
Over-budget alerts	Push notification when a category reaches 80% and 100% of its limit
Notes on transactions	Add free-text notes to any logged transaction for context

Recommendations for better budgeting

Start with fewer categories

Begin with 5–7 broad categories. More granular categories are useful but only after you have a logging habit established.

Review every Sunday

A weekly 5-minute review prevents month-end surprises. Check which categories are trending over budget and adjust behavior for the remaining week.

Use notes for irregular spend

When you log an unusual one-time expense, add a note explaining it. This helps the analytics engine flag it correctly and improves your month-over-month comparisons.

Give every dollar a job

Allocate 100% of your income across categories before the month starts. Any unallocated amount should explicitly be in a "Buffer" or "Unplanned" category.

Note

If you use rollover heavily, watch for accumulated rollover funds masking consistent overspending. A $200 rollover in month 3 of a clothes category might mean the budget limit is genuinely too low — adjust the limit instead.

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