Envelope / Zero-Based Budgeting

Curl Budget works great for tracking spending without formal budgeting. Set budgets on a few categories you want to watch, and leave the rest unbudgeted. But if you want to adopt an envelope-style or zero-based approach — assigning every dollar of income to a category — Curl Budget supports that too.

All Budgets vs. Spending Only

By default, the Explorer shows Spending Only: categories that have transactions in the current period. This is the familiar view for casual budget tracking.

When you switch to All Budgets mode (tap the toggle in the Explorer header), the view expands to include:

• Categories with budgets but no spending yet this period
• A budget summary card showing your overall allocation
• Budget-specific sort options

This toggle remembers your preference — it stays on until you turn it off.

Budget Summary Card

In All Budgets mode, a summary card appears at the top showing:

• Expected Income — Total of your income category budgets
• Total Budgeted — Sum of all expense category budgets
• To Be Budgeted — Income minus budgeted (green when zero, yellow when positive, red when negative)
• Spent / Remaining — Actual spending vs. budgeted amounts
• Progress bar — Overall budget utilization across all categories

The goal of envelope budgeting is to get To Be Budgeted to zero: every dollar of expected income is assigned to a category.

Income Budgets

To use envelope budgeting effectively, set budgets on your income categories too. Mark a category as an income source when creating or editing it — this tells Curl Budget it represents money coming in rather than going out.

Income category budgets appear in the summary card as Expected Income and use a gray-to-green progress bar (receiving income is always positive, so there's no red warning state).

Quick Budget Creation

Long-press any category in the Explorer to access the Create Budget action. The budget creation modal pre-fills with a suggested amount based on your historical average spending in that category, rounded to a clean number. In All Budgets mode, unbudgeted categories also show an inline Set Budget button for faster access.

Budget Sort Options

All Budgets mode adds three sort options to the Explorer:

• Over Budget First — Categories closest to or exceeding their budget, sorted by percentage
• Under Budget First — Categories with the most headroom, sorted by percentage
• Least Remaining First — Categories with the smallest dollar amount left before hitting their limit

Categories without budgets sort to the end in all three modes.

Historical Period Navigation

Every budget progress bar opens a detail view where you can navigate to past periods:

Viewing Past Periods

Use the left/right arrows or tap the period label to open a period picker showing the last 12 periods. Each period displays:

• The budget amount that was active
• An Override badge if the amount was explicitly changed for that period
• A Current badge for the active period

Editing Period Amounts

Tap Edit Amount for This Period to change the budget for a specific period. When you edit a period that has later overrides, you'll be asked how the change should apply:

• This period only — Changes just this period. A fence is inserted at the next period to preserve the previous amount going forward.
• This and all following periods — Sets the new amount for this period and removes all later overrides, so it cascades to all future periods.
• This and periods up to [next override] — Sets the amount for this period through the next explicit override, which remains unchanged.

Budget amounts cascade forward automatically: setting $500 in January means February, March, and so on inherit $500 until you set a different amount.

Getting Started with Envelope Budgeting

1. Create income budgets — Set expected amounts on your income categories
2. Budget your essentials — Assign budgets to necessary expenses (rent, groceries, utilities)
3. Allocate discretionary spending — Budget for dining, entertainment, shopping
4. Switch to All Budgets mode — See the full picture in the Explorer
5. Get To Be Budgeted to zero — Use the summary card to ensure every dollar is assigned
6. Review and adjust — Navigate to past periods to see how your budget evolves over time

Related Features

• Creating Budgets — How to set up category and tag budgets
• Budget Periods — Monthly, quarterly, and yearly period options
• Budget Alerts — Get notified when approaching limits
• Categories — Organize transactions for budgeting