Budget Rollover

Rollover changes how a budget transitions between periods, not how it counts spending. The budget keeps a running memory of the room you have banked instead of resetting to zero each time, which makes it behave more like a real-world envelope.

Rollover suits categories where some months are quiet and others are heavy by nature:

• Groceries - lighter the week before a holiday, heavier when you restock after.
• Utilities - seasonal swings between winter heating and summer cooling.
• Dining out - quiet during a focused saving month, busy when friends are in town.
• Personal care and hobbies - irregular by nature.

For these, a rigid monthly cap fights the way money actually flows. Rollover lets you hold an annualised target while still seeing month-by-month progress.

1. Open the Budgets tab of the Budget page.
2. Select the budget you want to change.
3. Tick Rollover unused amount into next month.

The change applies from next month. The current month keeps whatever setting was in effect when it began, so switching rollover on partway through does not retroactively create a carryover. You can change it as often as you like.

Rollover is for monthly budgets only. The option does not appear on an annual budget, which already runs the full year and has no next period to carry into. A WorryFree spending limit can roll over as well.

Carryover only ever moves in one direction. Finish under the limit and the unused amount is added to your surplus. Finish over it and the overspend draws that surplus down rather than carrying in as a negative. Next month’s available is the limit plus whatever surplus remains, and it can never fall below the base limit.

In practice a run of heavy months exhausts the cushion, at which point every month simply starts at the plain limit again. Overspending is never punished with a negative opening balance.

A Groceries budget with a $600 monthly limit and rollover on:

July opens at $600, not $550. The carryover clamps at zero, so no matter how far a month runs over, the next one never opens below the plain limit. The surplus you build is there to spend down; the base limit is the floor you fall back to.