How to use MyBudget

1. How it works

Your money is split into pots, one for each thing you spend on: Rego, Power, Car insurance, Groceries, Fuel, Misc and so on. Each pot gets a set amount put into it every week.

• Bill pots (rego, insurance, rates) fill up slowly, so when the bill arrives the money is already there. No more scrambling when a big annual bill lands.
• Spending pots (groceries, fuel) show you what you're really spending each week.
• Misc is your free money. If Misc has $200 in it, you can spend $200 on whatever you like, such as that thing you've been waiting for, or a treat for the kids, without touching the rego money.

All your pots together should add up to what's actually in your bank account. The money stays in your normal bank account; the pots are just how you keep track of what it's for.

2. Getting started

1. Create your login. On the login page, choose Create an account. Adding an email address is optional, but you'll need one to reset a forgotten password or get automatic-debit notices.
2. Create your pots (next section). Start with the big bills and the everyday spending; you can add more any time.
3. Put in what's already there. When you create a pot, enter its opening balance: the money you already have set aside for it. If you have money in the bank you haven't divided up, put it in Misc.
4. Optional: set up automatic debits for bills that come out on a fixed schedule, and add MyBudget to your phone's home screen.

3. Setting up your pots

Choose New in the menu. For each pot you set:

Name

Anything you like: "Rego Hilux", "Groceries", "Kids' sport".

Group

Optional heading on the dashboard, such as House, Car or Fun. Make groups with + Group on the dashboard.

Frequency

How often the bill comes: weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, bi-annual or annual. Use Irregular for everyday spending and things with no fixed timing (groceries, fuel, gifts, Misc).

Weekly deposit

How much goes into the pot each week. For a bill, work out the yearly cost and divide by 52. For example, $780 rego a year is $15 a week, and a $120 monthly bill is $120 × 12 ÷ 52 = $27.69 a week.

Auto-adjust

Tick this for bills that change a bit each time (power, water, phone). Every time you pay one, MyBudget averages the last year's worth of that bill and resets the weekly amount for you. For example, a quarterly power bill averages the last 4 bills, and an annual one uses the last bill.

Rearranging: drag the ⋮⋮ handle to change the order of pots, or to move a pot into a different group. Groups can be dragged too. On a phone, press and drag the handle.

Changing or closing a pot: use the pencil icon to edit it. To close one, open it (tap its name) and use Close this account at the bottom. You can move what's left in it to another pot. Closed pots can be reopened from Closed.

4. Your weekly routine

Once a week, usually payday, put each pot's weekly amount in:

1. On the dashboard, every pot has a tick box. They start ticked, except pots that already got their deposit in the last 6 days.
2. Untick any you want to skip this week. Select all and the tick box on each group heading help. The Deposit for ticked total updates as you go, so you can see how much of your pay this uses.
3. Tap Deposit done at the bottom. Each ticked pot gets its weekly amount.

If the deposit total is more than you earn, some weekly amounts are too high, or you're committed to more than your income. Better to know now than when the bill arrives.

5. Recording spending

Every time money leaves your bank account, it should come out of a pot. There are two ways to do it:

• By hand: tap + on a pot (or open the pot) and enter the description, amount, date and type. Choose Bill for the bill that pot is for (this is what auto-adjust averages), or Other for anything else. Use Credit for money coming back, like a refund.
• From your bank statement: much quicker once it's set up. See the next section.

Made a mistake? Open the pot and use the bin icon next to the entry. The balance is corrected automatically.

6. Importing from your bank

Getting the file

MyBudget reads CSV files, a spreadsheet-style export most banks offer. Log in to your bank's internet banking website, open your everyday account, and look for Export, Download transactions or similar. Choose CSV and the date range since your last import.

• Most banks only offer this on the website, not in their phone app. The website works fine in your phone's browser.
• Some app-only accounts (for example ANZ Plus) only provide PDF statements, which MyBudget can't read yet.
• Don't worry about overlapping dates. Lines you've imported before are skipped automatically.

Sorting the lines

1. Choose Import in the menu, pick the file and tap Upload.
2. Each bank line appears with a drop-down. Choose the pot it belongs to: Woolworths to Groceries, Shell to Fuel, and so on. Anything not recognised starts on Misc, so change it if it belongs elsewhere.
3. Some lines don't belong in a pot:
   • Income: your pay and other money coming in. Your weekly deposits already share that out to the pots, so it isn't counted twice.
   • Transfer: money moving between your own accounts.
   • Ignore: anything else you don't want recorded.
4. Tap Save. You don't have to do them all at once; unsorted lines wait for next time.

Teaching it your shops and bills

When you change a line, Remember gets ticked and a short piece of text appears, such as WOOLWORTHS. Next import, any line containing that text is filled in for you and marked auto. After a few imports, most lines arrive already sorted and you just check and save.

• Be more specific when you need to. If two insurance policies both show as "SUNCORP INSUR", keep the policy number in the text (SUNCORP INSUR MPS0511) so each goes to the right pot. The longer, more specific rule always wins.
• Transfers are remembered by the other account's number, so every transfer to or from that account is handled.
• See, edit or delete rules under Import → Saved rules.

Fixing mistakes

At the bottom of each import, Already sorted lists what you've done. Undo puts a line back so you can choose again. Deleting a whole import (bin icon on the Import page) takes everything it added back out of your pots.

7. Automatic debits and credits

For bills that come out on a fixed schedule (insurance, phone plan, subscriptions), tap the ⟲ icon on the pot and add it: description, amount, how often, and the first date. MyBudget then takes it out of the pot automatically on each due date, and emails you if you've given an email address. Automatic credits work the same way, for money that regularly goes into a pot.

• No double counting. When the same payment then shows up in a bank import, it's matched to the automatic entry instead of being added again (same pot, within 5 days).
• When a price changes. If the bank shows a different amount (say your insurance went up from $45.00 to $49.94), the import corrects the entry to the bank's figure and offers a ticked box: "Update automatic debit from $45.00 to $49.94". Leave it ticked and future debits use the new price. For pots without auto-adjust, the weekly deposit goes up by the extra cost spread over the year, and the box tells you the new figure before you save.

8. Suggestions

Everyday spending goes up and down, so pots like Fuel, Groceries and Misc don't auto-adjust. Instead, MyBudget keeps an eye on them. If over the last 8 weeks you've spent noticeably more than you're putting in, a note appears under the pot:

Spending about $152.40 a week lately (last 8 weeks), more than the $130.00 going in. Suggest $155.00 a week. Apply Not now

• Apply changes the weekly deposit. Suggestions are rounded up to leave a little buffer for price rises.
• Not now hides it for 4 weeks, unless spending climbs much further.
• If you're spending well under the weekly amount on something you buy regularly and the pot has built up a buffer, it suggests lowering it. Pots that save up for occasional spending (gifts, clothes, holidays) are left alone; they're meant to build up.

9. Checking against the bank

After an import, the dashboard compares the bank's balance with the total of all your pots:

• ✓ matches your bank: everything's accounted for.
• "$X not in any pot yet": there's money in the bank that isn't assigned to anything. Often it's pay you haven't deposited yet, or a buffer. You can put it into Misc or another pot.
• "Pots are $X more than the bank": your pots promise more money than you have. Usually a bank line hasn't been sorted yet, something was entered twice, or a pot went negative. Check the pots with red balances first.

Pots and bank will differ a little between payday and your weekly deposit. What matters is that the difference makes sense.

10. Using it on your phone

MyBudget works in any phone browser, and you can add it to your home screen so it opens like an app:

• iPhone: open the site in Safari, tap the Share button, then Add to Home Screen.
• Android: open the site in Chrome, tap the ⋮ menu, then Install app or Add to Home screen.

You stay logged in for 30 days. MyBudget needs an internet connection to show your balances.

11. Questions