Budget

The Budget page

Budget counts item purchases (the price on an item) and other spending (food, rentals, subscriptions), with budgets that warn you as you near a limit.

Money is private. Nothing about it ever reaches a page someone else can open: not your profile, a share link, a Circle or the feed. Your export does carry it.

What the Spent card says

The card at the head of the page shows the period's spending, with how it compares with the same point last time: red ▲ when it is more, green ▼ when it is less. Once something sold gives money back, the Net after sales sits beside it.

Under a dashed rule it counts the spending, the Back from sales and what went Spent around sessions, with View all entries at its foot.

Everything is in your home currency. A price in another currency is converted at that day's ECB rate and the total is marked ≈. An amount no rate reaches is listed apart, never guessed.

The period, and where weeks start

The period is This week, This month (where the page opens), This year, 12 months, All time or Custom. Step back and on with the ‹ and › arrows.

Weeks start on Monday unless you pick Sunday in Settings > Budget.

The four tabs

Under the cards, four tabs: Where it goes, Breakdowns, Value and Entries. A tab with nothing to show is left out.

Where to find it, and a page with nothing yet

Budget is in the sidebar under Your record, and in More on a phone.

Stats' Overview has one line about money once you have spent anything this year; see

Stats > The rest of Overview.

Before anything is counted, the page says Nothing counted yet and lists three ways in: an item's What you paid, a session's Spent and Add spending.

What you paid

Every item can carry what you paid for it, on any shelf or list: the price, the day and where. That is most of what Budget counts.

Open an item's page. In Your copy, press the What you paid row.

Type the amount. It is in your home currency unless you pick another, and Date bought starts on today.

Add Where bought if you like, then press Save.

Bought as: retail, crowdfunded, second-hand, a gift

Under Where bought, Bought as says how the item came to you: Retail, Crowdfunded, Second-hand, Gift, Trade, Free, or a word of your own. Until you pick one it follows the place, so Kickstarter reads as Crowdfunded.

A Gift or Free item was not paid for. Its price is shown as Received, not spent, and never counts as spending. A Trade counts the cash that went with it.

Pre-orders and split payments

On a pre-order, Paid yet? asks whether it is Paid already or to Pay when it arrives. One to pay on arrival is planned, not spent, until it comes.

Paid in is One payment or Monthly parts (2 to 24 months). Each part counts on its own day.

Wishes and sales

On the wishlist the row is Expected price, planned and not spent. Move a priced wish to Owned and a message asks Bought for CAD 80?, with Edit to correct it.

An item marked sold keeps what you paid and adds Sold for and Sold on. The sale is money back, set against your spending as the Net.

Spending around sessions

Food, travel or an entry fee on a game night goes on the session; sleeves, a rental or a subscription go in with Add spending.

In the log sheet, or a session's Edit, press Add spending.

Pick what it was (Food & drink, Travel, Entry, Rental, Supplies or Other) and type the amount.

Save the session. Its page then shows Spent with a total, to you only.

Add spending, for everything else

On the Budget page, Add spending takes an amount, its currency, the day, the Kind (Subscription among them), What it was and Where.

For attaches it to Nothing, An item or A shelf, so it counts on that item's or shelf's budget and figures.

Repeats is Once, Monthly or Yearly. A repeating entry counts each time it comes round, and Budget entries lists it under Subscriptions.

The log sheet itself, step by step:

Log a session.

Budgets and warnings

Set a weekly, monthly or yearly budget for everything, one shelf or one way of buying, and get a note in your Inbox as you near it.

Press Set a budget.

Under Every, pick Week, Month or Year, and under Counts pick what it covers: All spending, one shelf, or a way of buying.

Type the amount, in your home currency, and press Save.

Reading a budget's bar

Each budget is a bar of what is spent against the limit, with a tick for how far through the period today is. A fill short of the tick is under pace. Under the bar are what is left and the dates.

Green is within the budget, amber is once it reaches your warning share or is on course to pass the limit, and red is past it.

The warnings, and Budget settings

Each crossing sends one note to your Inbox: first at your warning share, then once past the limit. Raising a budget clears its notes.

The Budget settings button, beside Set a budget, holds Home currency, Notify me at (50 to 99%, 80% to start) and Weeks start on. The same three are in Settings > Budget.

Where your money goes

The tabs under the budgets break the period down by place, shelf, kind and how you bought, with the way to every entry.

Top places, and a price with no place

On the Where it goes tab, Top places lists your five biggest places with their totals. All places opens the whole list, and a press on a place shows its entries.

A purchase with no Where is counted all the same. Every place says how much has none.

The other cards

By shelf gives each shelf's total. What it went on splits the period by kind and by source (Items, Spent around sessions, Other).

How you bought totals item spending by Bought as, and says gifts apart (Received, not spent).

On the Value tab, Top items, all in adds each item's price to everything spent around it. Over time, on Where it goes, draws the period as bars, with the monthly budget as a dashed line.

Planned sits under the budgets and is what is coming: wishlist prices, pre-orders to pay on arrival and what is Still to pay on split prices.

Best bang for your buck sets an item's price against the hours you logged on it (three sessions or more).

Bars or pie

By shelf, What it went on and How you bought each have a Bars and Pie switch. Switch one and the others follow, and this browser remembers it.

Budget entries

Budget entries is every entry of the period, newest first: filter it, edit or remove an entry, or export it as CSV.

How the list reads, and what you can change

All spending lists entries by day for a month or less and by month beyond, each with its shelf, place and how it was bought. Load more entries brings the rest.

Kind, Shelf, Where and Bought as narrow the list, and Back undoes a filter. Export CSV saves what the list holds.

An entry from Add spending or a session opens its sheet, to change it or Remove it (with Undo). A price is changed on its item's What you paid.

Subscriptions and Every place

Subscriptions lists what repeats, with its monthly equivalent. Edit changes one, Stop ends it today (past months stay counted) and Add a subscription starts one.

Every place is the whole list behind Top places.