Budget Tracker
Set monthly spending budgets per category.
Overview
The Budget Tracker turns the abstract idea of "we should spend less on groceries" into a concrete monthly limit with a progress bar. Define categories such as Groceries, Rent, Dining, Transport, Subscriptions, or anything that matters to your household, attach a monthly spending cap to each, and the tracker compares actual expenses logged this month against the limit you set. The output is a percentage burned, the remaining balance, and a colour-coded chip that goes green, amber, or red as you approach and breach the cap.
It is intentionally lightweight: no envelopes, no rollovers, no complicated zero-based ledger. The goal is to make overspending visible early in the month so you can course-correct before payday, not to scold you after the fact. Pair it with the expense log and the budget tracker becomes a real-time dashboard of where money goes versus where you said it should.
How it works
Each budget category stores a name and a monthly limit. The tool pulls expenses logged in the current calendar month, groups them by category, and feeds them into a variance calculator that produces three numbers per category: spent, remaining, and percent of the limit consumed. The progress bar widens as the percentage climbs, switching colour once you cross eighty percent and again at one hundred percent so an at-a-glance scan is enough to spot trouble.
Aggregate totals at the top of the view sum every category to show combined monthly spend versus combined limit. Categories without matching expenses simply read zero, and you can delete a category at any time without losing the underlying expenses.
Examples
- Set Groceries to four hundred dollars and watch the bar fill through the month so you know whether to swap a restaurant night for a home-cooked meal.
- Cap Dining at one hundred and fifty dollars and use the percent indicator to decide if Friday's takeout fits or pushes you into red.
- Create a Subscriptions category at sixty dollars to keep streaming, software, and app stacks in check.
- Add a one-off Holiday category in November with a target spend so seasonal gifts do not blow up December's other budgets.
FAQ
Does the budget reset each month?
Yes. The tracker only counts expenses dated in the current calendar month, so every first of the month starts a clean slate.
Where do the spend totals come from?
From expenses you log in the Expense Log. Categories match by name, so spell them consistently or use the same picker on both tools.
What do the colour chips mean?
Green is under eighty percent of the limit, amber is between eighty and one hundred percent, and red is over budget. The colours match the progress bar so peripheral vision works.
Can I run multiple currencies?
The tracker totals in USD by default; for non-USD households log all entries in your primary currency so the bar maths stays meaningful.
Can I delete a category later?
Yes. Removing a category does not delete the expenses tagged to it; they remain in the log but stop counting against any budget.