#238

After months of feedback, testing, and refinement, we’re excited to share that the new Lunch Money budgeting feature is officially here! 🎉

The new budgeting system brings powerful flexibility while maintaining the simplicity you love. Here's a quick overview of what's new and what's changed:

🎁 New features

Custom budget periods
: You can now set custom budgeting periods that align with your actual financial flow! Choose weekly, bi-weekly, annual or custom periods like the 1st and 15th of each month.
General pool
: All income flows to one central pool that you distribute to categories, giving you a clearer view of your available funds.
Clear overview of totals
: View totals at the bottom of each column, as well as total budgetable, left to budget and net total available in the Budget Overview card.
Improved support and logic for rollovers
: Choose between rolling over available funds to the general pool or to the same category next period; set up your budget to work with zero-based budgeting, envelope budgeting, sinking funds, and more!
Apply budget presets in bulk
: Use budget presents to quickly set your budgets each month.
New budget preset options
: Choose to fill 'Available' up to a certain amount, set it to the total expected recurring for the period, or to the average spend in the last 3 months.
Hide categories with no activity and no budget
: Focus on what matters most by hiding the empty categories cluttering your view.
Available balance adjustments
: Set a starting balance, or reset the balance at any point in time (i.e., to start fresh, or reconcile actual bank balances).

⭐️ Improvements

Hide or show subcategories by clicking a category group's name to collapse or expand the group
Improved visual distinction between category groups and subcategories

🔧 Bug Fixes

The one where the Trends page failed to load
The one where income displayed incorrectly in the monthly summary on the Transactions page
The one where the positive sign changed to negative when typing zero in the amount field
The one where the Budget Breakdown displayed "for this month" instead of "for this period"
The one where "average activity last 3 months" ignored months with no activity
The one where a negative budget couldn't be set for a category group with empty subcategories
The one where the 'Expand Sidebar' button was misplaced on the Budget page
The one where the 'Pad your budget' tooltip displayed incorrect expected amounts for non-monthly recurring items

Learn more:

Guide: Budgeting with Lunch Money ➜