Category budgets

Category budgets may come in handy when you want to set enough money for essentials, like food or transportation, aside from the IN MY POCKET money, that you can spend on everything else. 

When creating a Category budget, PocketGuard will reserve the money for spending in this category, and deduct it from your IN MY POCKET.

This way you can even create a zero-based budget, by allocating a portion of your income for each category. However, in this case, your IN MY POCKET will always be equal to zero. That’s why they call it “zero-based”.

You can create up to 2 budgets with the basic version and PocketGuard Plus users can create as many budgets as they want.

NOTE: It is not allowed to create a Category budget for Income and Savings at this time, as we have a dedicated section for these parts of your budget - Income and Goals respectively. 

Also, in order to avoid double-counting, please use the Bills section to plan for your upcoming bills and subscriptions. 

How to create a Category budget?

To create a Category budget:

1. Go to Spending & Budgets;
2. Hit the + button in the top right corner;
3. Choose the category you'd like to budget for;
4. Enter the amount you’d to budget for this category;
5. Hit Save.

How to edit a Category budget?

To edit a Category budget:

1. Go to the Category budget;
2. Hit the ••• button in the top right corner;
3. Choose Edit budget;
4. Change the amount;
5. Hit Save.

How to delete a Category budget?

To delete a Category budget:

1. Go to the Category budget;
2. Hit the ••• button in the top right corner;
3. Choose Delete budget;
4. Confirm your choice.

Why did my budget turn red?

Red color means that you have overspent the amount budgeted in this category. It’s not a big deal, just go ahead and adjust your budget. Otherwise, the overspent amount will be further deducted from your IN MY POCKET.

Why did my budget turn green? 

Green color means you have earned more than you spent in the category. This usually happens when you receive a big return or refund. The “excess” amount will be added back to your IN MY POCKET.