How to set a spending limit for a category and see what's left (budgets)
Want to decide in advance how much to spend in a month, say 500 on groceries, and see how much is left? That's what budgets in Moneon are for. Every expense in the chosen categories is subtracted from the budget automatically.
How to create a budget
- iPhone: open the side menu → "Budgets" and tap the green "+" button at the bottom right.
- Android: at the bottom of the "Summary" tab, in the "Budgets" card, tap "Add budget". Budgets shown on Summary appear right in the card; the rest open with "All budgets".
Fill in:
- Title, for example "Groceries".
- Amount: how much you plan to spend in the period.
- Period: week, two weeks, month, quarter, half-year, year or custom dates. Android also has "Day".
- Categories: which expenses to count; you can pick several. If you pick none, the budget counts all expenses in the wallet.
- On Android all categories are ticked when the list opens: tap "Deselect all" at the top, then tick the ones you need.
- Ticking a category ticks its subcategories too. A subcategory you add later isn't picked up automatically: open the budget and tick it.
- Tags and Exclude tag (optional): count only transactions with certain tags, or leave them out.
- Users: in a shared wallet you can count only some members' spending.
- The switch to show the budget on the Summary screen. On iPhone only one budget is shown there: if you turn it on for another one, the app will offer to replace it.
Where to see what's left
The budget list shows how much of the amount is spent. Open the budget itself to see the "Remainder" (how much you can still spend), or "Overlimit" if you've gone over, and how many days are left in the period.
A month that starts on payday
A monthly budget follows the first day of the month set for the wallet. To make the month start, for example, on the 10th:
- iPhone: side menu → "Properties" → "Default period": "Month" → "First day of month".
- Android: "Settings" → "Wallet settings" → "Period": "Month" → "First day of month".
"First day of month" appears only when the period is set to "Month". The period has to stay "Month": if you pick another one, the first day of month goes back to the 1st. This is a wallet-wide setting, so the month on Summary will start on the same day. In a shared wallet on iPhone only the owner can change it.
Budgets in a shared wallet
Budgets in a personal wallet are free. In a shared wallet budgets are part of Premium: the wallet owner with Premium creates them, and other members with Premium can see the budgets and the spending in them. See also "Who can do what in a shared wallet".