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Naming Your Budget

The first two fields in the Builder are Budget Name and Description (Optional). They sit above the four sections, and once you type a name it replaces "Budget Builder" in the title bar.

These are the fields people skip. They also decide whether your Archive is useful in six months or a wall of identical entries.

Budget Name

The name is required — Calculate won't run without one, and the line under the button reads Name the budget to continue. It can be up to 45 characters.

Give the budget a name that describes the situation it was built for, not the date you built it.

Names that work:

  • ›Current — post-raise
  • ›If we move to Denver
  • ›Aggressive payoff, no vacation
  • ›Baseline before car purchase

Names that don't:

  • ›Budget 1
  • ›New Budget
  • ›Test

The reason is the Archive. Every budget you build is kept, and you'll accumulate more than you expect — one from before a raise, two exploring a move, one you built to see what happens if you drop a subscription. When you come back to compare them, the name is the main thing that tells apart plans that otherwise look similar.

Description

The description is optional free text, up to 250 characters. It's where the assumptions go. The name tells you which budget this is; the description tells you what you were thinking when you built it.

Useful things to record:

  • ›What you assumed that might change — assumes the bonus lands in March
  • ›What you deliberately left out — not counting freelance, too unpredictable
  • ›What you'd revisit — rebuild once the car loan is gone

The description shows under the name in the title bar while you build, on the budget's page in the Archive, and the Archive's search looks through it as well as the name. Six months later it's the difference between understanding an old budget and guessing at it.

Changing the name later

A budget's name and description are saved with it when you tap Calculate, and there's no rename option in the Archive. To change them, reopen the budget with Edit in Builder, which loads its inputs back into the Builder. The name and description aren't loaded with them, so type them in again, then calculate — this creates a new budget, and the original stays in the Archive. See Editing & Rebuilding a Budget.

Next

Continue to Income & Current Savings.