The Archive
Every budget you've ever built is kept in the Archive. Nothing is discarded when you build a new one.
Find it at Settings → Account → Archive.
What's in it
A list of your budgets, each showing its name and description, with your current Active Budget marked. Pinned budgets appear at the top.
Budgets without a name show as Unnamed and ones without notes show No description available — which is a strong argument for filling both in. See Naming Your Budget.
Input Details
Expanding a budget shows the inputs it was built from, broken out by section:
Income — amount, next payday, and frequency
Housing — amount, starting and ending dates, and frequency
Expenses — the same fields, per expense
Debts — balance, payment, starting date, and interest rate
This is the record of what you believed when you built it. It's the fastest way to answer "why does this old budget say something different?" — usually because your income was lower or a debt has since cleared.
It's also where you check a suspicious plan. If a projection looks wrong, the interest rates here are the first thing to look at.
What it's for
Comparing plans. Build one budget for your current situation and another for a scenario you're considering, then compare the inputs and outcomes side by side rather than from memory.
Seeing how far you've come. An old budget's debt balances against today's is a more concrete measure of progress than any chart. Especially useful in the middle of a long payoff, when the day-to-day doesn't feel like it's moving.
Recovering a plan. If you switched to something more aggressive and it isn't working, the previous budget is still there to restore.
Remembering your reasoning. Notes and inputs together reconstruct not just what you planned but why.
Actions available
From a budget in the Archive you can:
- ›Restore it as your active budget — see Your Active Budget
- ›Add To Budget — bring its inputs into the Builder
- ›Pin to Top — keep it at the head of the list
- ›Delete it permanently
- ›Search and sort the list
Multiple budgets and Thrive
Keeping several budgets active for comparison is a Thrive feature, as is automated restoration of past budgets. Your history remains visible on the Free plan.
See What's Included with Thrive.
Getting value out of it
The Archive is only as useful as what you put in. Two habits make the difference:
Name budgets by situation, not by date. Before the raise beats Budget 3.
Write the assumptions in the notes. What you expected to change, what you left out, why you picked the plan you picked. Six months later that's the difference between understanding an old budget and guessing.