Skip to content
Balanced

Month to month

Concepts

A new month doesn't wipe the slate clean. Leftover budget stays where it is, unassigned money comes along, and overspending is settled once, at the start of the next month.

Each month you assign that month’s income. But the old month still matters: what you didn’t spend, what you didn’t assign and what you overspent all carry into the new one. Here’s how.

Leftover budget stays in its category

Section titled “Leftover budget stays in its category”

Say Groceries had €400 in October and you spent €360. The remaining €40 stays in Groceries. In November, Groceries starts with €40, plus whatever you assign.

That’s how you save up for something bigger. Assign €300 to Holiday every month and don’t spend it, and the category grows month by month until the trip.

The leftover isn’t added to To assign again. You already decided what it’s for.

Overspending starts again at zero

Section titled “Overspending starts again at zero”

Now say Fun had €100 and you spent €130 from your checking account. Fun is overspent by €30. At the start of November:

  • Fun starts again at 0, not at −30. You don’t drag a debt around in that category.
  • The €30 comes off November’s To assign. You spent money you hadn’t planned for, so you have that much less to plan with now.

Say you ended October with every euro assigned and these category balances:

End of this month
Fun−30.00
Groceries40.00
Holiday300.00
Start of next month
Fun starts again at 00.00
Groceries carries over40.00
Holiday carries over300.00
Overspent last month−30.00

Overspending with a credit card works differently: it stays on the card as debt and doesn’t reduce next month’s To assign. The category still starts again at 0. Credit cards and debt explains why.

Unassigned money comes along too

Section titled “Unassigned money comes along too”

If you didn’t assign everything in October, the rest isn’t lost. It’s added to November’s To assign.

In the budget editor, one line under Available sums up what October left behind: the money you didn’t assign, minus what you overspent without a credit card. If that’s more than zero, the line reads Remaining last month; if it’s less, it reads Overspent last month.

  1. October’s €30 of overspending, taken from what you have to assign in November.
  2. To assign: the €2,500 you have, minus the €30, minus the €2,000 you’ve assigned so far.

Rebalancing during the month

Section titled “Rebalancing during the month”

When a category runs low before the month is over, you don’t have to overspend. Change your assignments instead: lower a category that has room to spare and raise the one that’s running out. To assign stays the same, and you’ve adjusted your plan to what really happened.

Rebalancing is normal. A budget is a plan, and plans change.

Under the hood · for the curious

Overspending is purely a budget idea. The transaction behind it is an ordinary one, and the money really did leave Checking:

Concert tickets · Oct 24
Expenses:Fun
+130.00
Assets:Checking
−130.00
Balanced
0.00 ✓

For each month, Balanced works out:

category =
    max(0, balance at the end
           of last month)
  + assigned this month
  − spent this month


Remaining last month =
    last month's To assign
  − last month's overspending
    not paid by card

© 2026PrivacyImprint