We’re excited to introduce a long-awaited feature: the rollover budget! Now, any unspent funds in your budget categories can be carried over into the next month, giving you more flexibility and control over your finances.
Whether you have a fixed amount in mind for essential expenses like rent or your Netflix subscription, or you find budgeting a bit trickier for variable costs such as dining out, groceries, or entertainment, the rollover budget is here to help.
With this feature, any unused funds at the end of the month seamlessly transition into the next, offering numerous advantages:
- Seasonal Expenses: If you encounter costs that fluctuate throughout the year — like clothing for different seasons, school supplies, or summer activities — you can now save for these by rolling over surplus funds or managing any deficits effectively.
- Annual Budgeting: To streamline your yearly budget, simply divide your total by 12 to establish a monthly target. This allows you to monitor your spending and see if you’re on track with your average budget.
- Sinking Funds: Create a custom category for specific savings goals, setting a monthly budget that helps you accumulate funds. If you don’t spend from this category, your rollover amount grows, enabling you to save until you’re ready to use it. Conversely, if you need to spend, you can adjust your future budgeting to recover the balance.
How to enable the rollover for category budgets?
If you already have category budgets set up, you can easily turn on the rollover option for any category you choose. Here’s how to do it:
- Go to the “Spending & Budgets” section of the “Dashboard” tab;
- Select the category for which you'd like to enable the rollover;
- In the category details view, click on the "..." icon located in the upper-right corner;
- From the dropdown menu, select the "Enable rollover" option.
Once you enable rollover for a category, a special icon will appear next to it in the “Spending & Budgets” section, indicating that the rollover feature is active. Additionally, the “Left to spend” label for this category will change to “Left to rollover”, reflecting that any unused funds in this budget category will carry over to the following month.
When creating a new category budget, you can enable the rollover feature by simply toggling the "Make this budget a monthly rollover" option under the amount field. This will ensure any leftover funds from the current month roll over into the next.
How to reset the rollover feature?
Sometimes, you might not want the rollover to carry over into the next month, especially if you prefer to start fresh or if the leftover amount doesn’t align with your new budget. In these cases, you can easily reset the rollover for any category by following these steps:
- Go to the “Spending & Budgets” section of the “Dashboard” tab.
- Select the category where the rollover is enabled.
- In the category details view, click on the "..." icon in the upper-right corner.
- From the dropdown menu, select the "Reset rollover" option.
How to delete the rollover budget?
If you decide that you no longer want to use the rollover feature for a specific category budget, you can easily turn it off. To delete the rollover budget, follow these steps:
- Go to the category budget;
- Hit the ••• button in the top right corner;
- Choose Edit Budget;
- Toggle off the rollover option;
- Hit Save.
How does the rollover calculation work?
If you don’t spend all the money you’ve budgeted for something (like groceries or entertainment), the leftover amount will be added to next month’s budget. If you spend more than planned, the extra amount will be subtracted from next month’s budget.
Basically, any money left unspent is rolled over into the next month, and any overspending gets carried forward as well. This way, nothing is wasted, and you always know where you stand financially.
Here’s the formula for the rollover amount:
Rollover (last month) + Budget(this month) - Spent (this month) + Earned (this month) = Left to rollover
In simpler terms:
- Rollover (Last Month): Any leftover money from the previous month (or any deficit from overspending).
- Budget (This Month): How much you planned to spend this month.
- Spent (This Month): The amount you actually spent this month.
- Earned (This Month): The total income received for this category within the current month.
- Left to Rollover: The amount of money you will carry forward to next month (either extra or a deficit).
What happens if I overspend in a category? Does the overspending roll over?
Yes, if you overspend, the extra amount will roll over to next month, but it will affect your budget negatively. You’ll start with a deficit, meaning you’ll have less money to spend in that category next month.
Let’s say you overspend by $100 this month in your entertainment budget. That $100 will roll over as a negative amount into the next month, reducing the budget available for entertainment.
Example 1: Overspending
Imagine you budget $500 for entertainment this month, but you end up spending $600. You overspend by $100, which will be rolled over and subtracted from next month’s budget.
- Rollover (Last Month): $0 (you had no leftover money)
- Budget (This Month): $500
- Spent (This Month): $600
- Earned (This Month): $0
- Rollover (Next Month): $500 + $0 - $600 + $0 = - $100
This means that next month, instead of starting with your usual $500 budget for entertainment, you’ll begin with $400 ($500 - $100 deficit).
Example 2: Underspending
Let’s say you budget $500 for groceries this month but only spend $400. The leftover $100 will be added to next month’s grocery budget, giving you more to spend.
- Rollover (Last Month): $0
- Budget (This Month): $500
- Spent (This Month): $400
- Earned (This Month): $0
- Rollover (Next Month): $500 + $0 - $400 + $0 = $100
Next month, you’ll have an extra $100 for groceries.
How does the rollover budget affect the Leftover calculation?
If you didn’t spend the allocated funds last month, those funds will carry over into your budgets for the next month. As a result, your Leftover will increase by the rollover amount, giving you more available funds to spend in the upcoming month.
Example:
Month 1:
- Income: $5000
- Expenses: $3000 (you had a budget of $4000)
- Goals: $1000
- Leftover Money: $0
- Rollover Balance: +$1000 (since you didn’t spend $1000, this amount rolls over to next month)
Month 2:
- Rollover Balance: +$1000 (added from last month)
- Income: $5000
- Expenses: $4000 (same budget)
- Goals: $1000
- Leftover Money: $1000 (you have $1000 leftover this month)
- IMP: $1000 (your available funds increase by the rollover amount)
In this scenario, since you didn’t spend all your allocated funds in Month 1, you carry over $1000 to Month 2. This gives you a total of $1000 more to spend this month.
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