Why budget?

A budget helps you understand where your money goes and set limits on spending categories. Finance Frank makes budgeting simple with category-level tracking and progress indicators.

Creating a budget

1. Go to Budgets & Goals

Click Budgets & Goals in the navigation.

2. Set category limits

For each spending category, set a monthly limit. Common budgets include:

• Groceries — e.g. $600/month
• Dining out — e.g. $200/month
• Transport — e.g. $150/month
• Entertainment — e.g. $100/month

Don't budget separately for loan repayments or subscriptions. They're already known monthly amounts and they auto-roll into the matching category (mortgage → Housing, car loan → Transport, streaming → Subscriptions). When you set the Housing budget at, say, $5,000/mo, your $3,500 mortgage repayment is inside that budget — you've got $1,500 of headroom for rates, repairs, etc. See How budgets, committed costs and actuals fit together for the full model.

3. Track your progress

As you import transactions, Finance Frank automatically tracks your spending against each budget. You'll see:

• Spent so far — total spending in the category this month
• Remaining — how much budget is left
• Progress bar — visual indicator of where you stand
• Over budget warning — alerts when you exceed a limit

Tips for effective budgeting

• Start with a few key categories rather than budgeting everything
• Review past transactions to set realistic limits
• Adjust budgets monthly based on what's working
• Use Frank AI to ask "How much did I spend on groceries last month?" to inform your budgets