Features

Budget Tracking

Set per-category spending limits and see exactly where you stand at any point in the month.

Budget OverviewLive Demo

How Budgets Work

Each category in your budget has a monthly spending limit. As you log expenses, Retrospend tracks actual spend against the limit in real time. The partition bar at the top shows how your total budget is allocated across categories, and each category row includes a bullet chart showing spend vs. limit.

Variable vs Fixed Categories

Budget categories are split into two groups:

Variable / Managed

Categories where you actively control spending: groceries, dining, entertainment. You set a target limit and Retrospend calculates a daily safe-to-spend pace.

Fixed / Pegged to Actual

Categories with predictable costs: rent, subscriptions, insurance. Toggle "Peg to actual" and the budget automatically matches what you spend, keeping the focus on variable categories.

Key Features

Partition Bar

A proportional bar at the top showing how your total budget is divided across all categories.

Bullet Charts

Each category row has a horizontal bullet chart: a bar for actual spend against the target limit marker.

Copy from Last Month

Start a new month by copying last month's budget allocation with one click, then adjust as needed.

Safe-to-Spend

The dashboard guide line shows your ideal daily pace based on your budget. The "safe-to-spend" number tells you how much you can spend per remaining day this month and still hit your target. It updates live as you log transactions.

Budget Playground

The budget playground is a sandbox for experimenting with different allocations before committing them. Adjust category limits, see how the partition bar shifts, and test different budget distributions. Nothing saves until you explicitly apply the changes.

Exclude from analytics

Some expenses (one-off purchases, security deposits) can be excluded from analytics. Excluded transactions won't count toward budget limits or dashboard totals but remain in your transaction history.

Tips

Peg fixed costs

Use "Peg to actual" for rent, insurance, and subscriptions. This way your safe-to-spend calculation only reflects categories you can actually control.

Budget history

Navigate to past months to compare your budget performance over time. Each month stores its own snapshot, so changing a current budget never alters historical data.

Multi-currency budgets

Budget limits are set in your home currency. Expenses in other currencies are converted automatically using the rate at the time of the transaction.

Dashboard

Wealth Tracking