Budgets

Your budget is your monthly spending plan. The budget screen shows how much you've allocated to each spending group, how much you've spent against it, and whether you're on track. It feeds the Budget Adherence component of your health score (worth up to 175 points) and the "left to spend" calculation on your dashboard.

How it works

Two views

The budget screen has two modes, toggled at the bottom:

• Groups view (default) — 14 budget groups like Housing, Food and Transport. Each group contains several tracking categories. This is the view most people use day-to-day; it's scannable at a glance.
• Categories view — the full list of 32 individual tracking categories, for people who want granular control.

keel remembers your last-used view between visits.

The header strip

Three numbers across the top:

• Income — auto-populated from your 3-month average. Tap to set a custom figure for this month (useful for variable income, bonuses or part-time months). Shows "Based on your 3-month average" or "Set by you".
• Allocated — the sum of all your budget targets.
• Buffer — income minus allocated. Turns amber when negative, meaning you've allocated more than you earn.

Budget groups

Each group row shows the group name and icon, a Need / Want / Save classification, the budget amount (tap to edit — shows £0 when not set), your current spend against the budget, a progress bar, and how much you have left per day (or by how much you're over). Tap a group to expand it and see the categories inside.

Group and category budgets

You can set budgets at the group level, the category level, or both:

• Group budget only — one number covers the whole group. The simplest approach: set £200 for Transport and keel tracks your total transport spending against it.
• Category budgets only — set individual amounts for Fuel, Public Transport and so on. The group total automatically becomes the sum.
• Both — set a group budget as the ceiling, then optionally allocate portions to specific categories within it.

A few rules keep this consistent:

• Category budgets can never exceed the group budget. If they would, the group budget automatically increases to match.
• If you remove a group budget while its categories still have budgets, the group stays as the sum of its categories.
• Under-allocating within a group is fine — it just means you have a buffer.

Editing budgets

Tap any £ amount to edit it. The number itself is the tap target — there's no separate "Set budget" button. Type a new figure and press Enter or tap away to save. Enter 0 to remove a budget.

Pre-fill from your spending

keel can fill in suggested amounts for categories that don't have budgets yet, based on your typical monthly spend for each one, rounded to the nearest £10. A Revert option lets you undo if the suggestions don't feel right. This works in the categories view; the groups view gets a per-group equivalent via the "Worth budgeting" card below the list.

Three reference points and a recommendation

In the groups view, every budget group shows three numbers to help you set a budget you can trust — even before you've set one, which is exactly when the reference matters most:

• Last month — what you actually spent in that group last month.
• Typical — your typical monthly spend for that group. For regular bills it reflects the actual payment and how often it lands; for everyday spending it's your middle (median) month, so one unusual month doesn't skew it.
• Similar — what households like yours spend, shown in teal to mark it as the outside reference.

Any figure that isn't available is left out. Above the references, each group offers a single recommended budget as a one-tap "Set £X":

• It anchors on your typical monthly spend where you have spending history — the number you've shown you can live on.
• For a brand-new group with no history, it uses the "households like yours" figure as a credible starting point.
• Where you're spending well above similar households on a discretionary group (a want, not an essential), it gently eases the recommendation toward them — a better number that's still realistic. It never does this to essentials like rent or bills, and never drops below what similar households spend.

You can always tap the amount again afterwards to set your own number.

Households like yours

The "Similar" figure compares you to UK households in your income range, using national data from the ONS Family Spending survey. It's a sounding board, not a target — and it's a per-household figure, so your household may be larger or smaller than the typical one in your income band. Treat it as a rough guide.

It appears once you've set your income range under Settings → Household → Household income. A prompt below the groups links you there if you haven't set it yet. The data source is credited beneath the groups. Your comparison to other households never affects your health score — the score is based on your own behaviour.

Month navigation

Budgets always opens on the month you're currently in — not the month of your most recent import. Budgeting looks forward: you set a target for the month ahead and watch spending build against it. Your targets carry over month to month and don't need a transaction to exist, so the current month is never blank even before you've imported it — it shows your targets, what you've spent so far, last month for comparison, and any prepaid costs that cover it.

Browse previous months using the arrows beside the month label. Past months show your actual spending against the budgets that were set at the time — read-only, but useful context when deciding next month's targets.

Budget coverage and your score

Your Budget Adherence score (up to 175 points) unlocks when your budgets cover 70% of your variable spending. Coverage is spending-weighted: budgeting a £1,200 Housing group counts far more than budgeting £30 of Parking.

Fixed costs — needs like rent and council tax — are excluded from the coverage calculation. You can't control those month-to-month, so requiring budgets for them would be friction without value.

Summary lines

A small group of one-line summaries sits beneath the month picker, shown only when relevant:

• Projection — "If you stay on track, you'll have £340 surplus this month" or "At current pace, you'll be £150 over budget this month — adjust or absorb?" Shows from day 6 onward, because one large purchase early in the month makes the pace look wildly off.
• All on track — "All 7 budgets on track with 12 days to go."
• Daily remaining — "£18/day remaining across all budgets."
• Needs / Wants / Savings split — shown once you have 3 or more budgeted groups.
• Day-7 note — a quiet reminder that budget changes after day 7 count toward next month's score. Only appears when you have unsaved changes and it's after day 7.

If this month's statements aren't fully imported yet, the projection and on-track lines step aside. They're worked out from what you've spent so far, and with statements still missing that figure is too low — it would promise you a surplus that's really just spending keel can't see yet. In their place you'll see a short note like "June is still filling in — 2 accounts haven't been imported yet, so it's too early to project where you'll land. Import your latest statements for a clearer picture." Once your accounts are up to date for the month, the projection comes back on its own. Your income, allocated and left-to-allocate figures stay visible the whole time, because those don't depend on how much you've spent.

The punch-list card

Below the list, a card surfaces up to three things worth looking at this month:

• Worth budgeting — unbudgeted categories you spend meaningfully on, ranked by last month's spend or your 3-month typical, whichever is higher. Using the typical means the card still appears early in the month or during setup, before last month's statements are in. Each row shows that figure and an "Add £X" button that commits the suggested budget.
• Needs attention — budgeted groups that have gone over their cap, each with a "View" link to investigate. Neither the budget nor your spending is automatically wrong — it's a judgment call.
• Worth a look — a mix of the two, ranked by £ severity.

The card disappears when everything is budgeted and on track. The Other group is excluded — see below.

The Other group

Other doesn't get a budget. It's a catch-all for uncategorised transactions, and it exists to be emptied, not managed. Instead of a budget prompt, you'll see a nudge to review and categorise what's in it.

Prepaid and annual costs

Some fixed costs are paid as one lump that covers many months — a year's rent paid up front, annual car or home insurance, anything prepaid. Left alone, that single payment makes the category look huge in one month and £0 for the rest of the year, which understates your spending across the year and flatters your savings rate and score.

The "Prepaid & annual costs" section at the bottom of the Budgets screen handles this. Add a cost by entering what you actually paid and how many months it covers — keel works out the monthly figure and the window for you. £30,000 of rent over 12 months from July becomes about £2,500 a month, July to June. From then on keel counts that monthly figure in every covered month, so no single month spikes and no month reads £0.

It works whether or not keel saw the payment:

• You paid it while using keel — keel finds the original payment and links it, so the month isn't counted twice.
• You paid it before joining keel, or it never passed through an account keel can see — the declaration stands on its own.

If keel spots a large payment in a fixed category that looks like it covers several months, it offers to set this up for you, prefilled. You can edit or remove a prepaid cost any time from the same section.

Why it works this way

• Groups by default — 14 rows are scannable in a few seconds; 32 are not. The categories view is there when you want it.
• £0 rather than a dash for unset budgets — the budget exists at zero. In keel's design language a dash means "no data", which is a different thing.
• Coverage-weighted scoring — your score reflects genuine financial planning across what you actually spend, rather than being unlockable with three small token budgets.
• Under-allocation is neutral — keeping a buffer within a group is good practice, not something to warn you about.

Good to know

• Spend figures net refunds. Every figure on this screen — what you've spent, last month, and Typical — subtracts refunds against the matching category, the same as Reports, so a £1,232 vet bill reimbursed £1,193 reads as the ~£39 it really cost. If refunds in a category beat your spend in a month, it shows the honest negative rather than £0. Bounced direct debits don't count as spend either. More in Refunds and returns.
• Removing a group budget when categories still have budgets: the group auto-derives to the categories' sum.
• Removing all category budgets: the group keeps its current amount and reverts to group-only tracking.
• If you had no variable spending last month, coverage can't be calculated and keel falls back to a simple budget-count check.
• Setting or changing a budget after day 7 of the month still works for planning — progress bars, pacing and projections all update — but your score uses a snapshot of your budgets taken on day 7. Changes after that only count toward next month's score. This prevents setting a budget late that conveniently matches what you've already spent.

FAQ

Do I need to set budgets for every category?

No. Budget the groups that matter to you. The score component unlocks once your budgets cover 70% of your variable spending.

What happens if I go over budget?

The progress bar changes colour and you may see a coaching nudge. Your score is affected through the Budget Adherence component. Nothing is blocked.

Can I set a budget for the Other group?

No. Other is for uncategorised transactions — review and categorise them instead.

What's the difference between group and category budgets?

Group budgets are a single cap for everything in the group. Category budgets break it down further. Most people only need group budgets.

I changed my budget on day 15 — why didn't my score change?

Your score uses the budgets that were in place on day 7. Changes after that still update your progress bars and projections, but only affect next month's score.

I paid a year's rent (or annual insurance) in one go — how do I record that?

Use "Prepaid & annual costs" at the bottom of the Budgets screen. Enter what you paid and how many months it covers; keel spreads it evenly across those months so your spending, budgets and savings rate stay accurate instead of spiking once and reading £0 the rest of the year.