Budgets and goals

Budgets answer "am I within my spending caps this month?" Goals answer "am I saving enough for what matters?" Together they tell you whether your finances are on track.

Done through your assistant. This isn’t something you set up inside the Wise Pennyapp yet — you ask your connected AI assistant to do it for you. The app shows the result (for example, an “Edited” or “Split” mark on a transaction); the examples below show what to ask.

A Budget is a monthly spending cap

A Budget can cover a single category (Restaurants), a group of categories (Food & Drink overall), or everything across all your spending. Wise Penny starts with no budgets — you define what you care about. That keeps the picture uncluttered and means every Budget you see is one you actually chose to track.

Spent updates live; no month-end ritual

Budget totals update as new transactions sync from your bank. There's no closing the books, no manual tally. Refunds net against spending automatically — if you return something and the refund posts, the Budget adjusts. Pending charges don't count until they post.

Anything carrying a system tag (Internal transfer, Credit card payment, Reimbursable, Lent, Borrowed, Cash withdrawal) is excluded from Budget spending. The system knows those aren't real expenses, so you don't need to work around money you move between your own accounts or repayments to a friend.

Rollover carries leftover or overspend forward

Each Budget can be set to roll over or not. The default is to reset each month — whatever you didn't spend in March doesn't carry into April.

Turn rollover on and it works in both directions: an underspend in March increases April's available amount; an overspend in March comes out of April's. This is useful for irregular categories — seasonal spending, travel that bunches, holiday gift budgets.

One-month overrides for unusual months

Your baseline Budget amount repeats every month. Occasionally a month is genuinely unusual — December's grocery bill runs higher, or you're traveling in July so dining doesn't apply. Set a one-time override for that month without changing the long-term cap. Next month the baseline is back.

A few Budget guidelines

Start with 3–5 budgets. The categories you already think about — dining, groceries, travel, subscriptions. Add more once you know what you actually want to watch. A long list you never check isn't useful.
Don't budget for internal transfers. Money you move between your own accounts is already handled as pass-through — it won't appear in any Budget's spending. See internal transfers if you need to link one manually.
Check in monthly. Caps are a tool for awareness, not a punishment. When you drift, adjust the cap or adjust the behavior — whichever is the right response.

A Goal is a savings target with a date

Examples: $5,000 emergency fund by December 31, $8,000 for a trip to Japan by next August, $20,000 toward a car in 18 months.

Goals are aspirational — not pools of money. Nothing is moved or set aside when you create one. No account is debited. A Goal is a declaration: “this is what I'm working toward”. The system uses it to do the math on whether you're saving fast enough.

How “am I on track” works

Wise Penny calculates how much you should have saved by today, across all your active Goals combined. It compares that number against what you actually have — either your current savings and cash balances, or how much you've been net-saving over time (income minus expenses). You get a clear answer: ahead, on pace, or behind, and by how much.

There is intentionally no per-Goal “saved toward this goal” number. Money is fungible. If $4,000 sits in one savings account but you have both an emergency-fund Goal and a vacation Goal, no honest math allocates that $4,000 between them. The aggregate view — all Goals, all savings, one pace calculation — is the only one that doesn't mislead.

A few Goal guidelines

Link a Goal to the account(s) that fund it. When your assistant answers a pace question, it reads your savings balances. Pointing it to the right accounts makes that answer accurate.
Keep 2–5 active Goals at most. Too many Goals competing for the same income produces a confusing picture and unrealistic monthly savings requirements.
Tidy up expired Goals when you notice them. Once a Goal's target date passes, the system stops counting it in your pace math — so it won't skew anything. But it still sits in your Goals list. Mark it completed, push the date out, or delete it so the list reflects what you're actually working toward.

Budgets and Goals together

Budgets are the “spend within bounds” half. Goals are the “save for what matters” half. Your assistant can read both at once: “Can I afford a $400 dinner without blowing my dining Budget or slipping behind on my vacation Goal?” — the kind of question that's hard to answer staring at a spreadsheet and easy to ask in plain language.

For the assistant to do that well, the setup needs to be honest. Caps should reflect how you actually want to live, not an idealized version of yourself. Goals should have real amounts and real dates. The numbers you put in are the numbers it reasons from.

Ask your assistant: “Help me set up Budgets and savings Goals — I'll describe how I spend and what I'm saving toward, and you propose a starting point.”