Creating Your First Budget

This is the full path from an empty app to an active budget you're tracking against. Set aside about fifteen minutes, and have your loan and card statements handy.

Step 1 — Open the Budget Builder

From the home screen, start a new budget. The Builder opens on General, and you'll work down through five sections in order:

General → Income → Housing → Expenses → Debts

You don't have to finish in one sitting, but the calculation needs all five before it can run.

Step 2 — Name it

Give the budget a name and, optionally, some notes. It feels skippable on your first budget. It stops feeling skippable around your fourth, when the Archive is a list of similar-looking plans and "Post-raise, aggressive" is the only thing telling them apart.

See Naming Your Budget.

Step 3 — Income and current savings

Add each income source with its amount and frequency, then set your next payday. That date anchors the whole plan — every paycheck period in your budget is counted forward from it.

Enter your Current Savings as the balance you're starting with today.

Full detail: Income & Current Savings.

Step 4 — Housing

Enter your rent or mortgage payment, its frequency, and when it's due. See Housing.

Step 5 — Expenses

Add your recurring bills. Aim for the things that arrive on a schedule — utilities, insurance, phone, subscriptions, a realistic grocery figure. You don't need to itemize discretionary spending; the plan works from your committed costs.

Each expense takes an amount, a frequency, and a due date. The due date is what places the bill on the correct paycheck later. See Expenses.

Step 6 — Debts

For each debt, enter the balance, the interest rate, and the minimum payment. Include everything, even small balances — the algorithm sequences them against each other, so a missing card changes the order.

This is the step where accuracy pays off most. See Debts.

Step 7 — Calculate

Tap Calculate. The app builds your plans and takes you to the results screen.

A typical result is five plans at increasing intensity, from Minimum Effort through Maximum Effort. Each card shows what you'll have saved and by when; expanding one shows its duration, the date your balances reach zero, how much time it saves against the baseline, and a T-chart of the money flow.

On the Free plan you'll see one plan unlocked and the rest showing their headline numbers behind a lock. See What's Included with Thrive.

Full detail: Understanding Your Results.

Step 8 — Pick one and start tracking

Choose the plan you can live with, not the fastest one. A Maximum Effort plan you abandon in March is worth less than a Minimum Effort plan you finish.

Once a budget is active, the home screen switches to your first paycheck period and lists the bills due from it. From there your routine is short: open the app when you get paid, work down the bills, mark them complete.

Next: How Paycheck Budgeting Works.

Nothing here is permanent. You can edit inputs and rebuild whenever your situation changes, and every budget you've built stays in the Archive. See Editing & Rebuilding a Budget.