📅 Periods & Budgeting Guide

Periods help you organize your budget into manageable time frames. Plan ahead and track your progress over time.

What is a Period?

A period is a time frame for your budget - typically one month. Each period has:

Start and end dates
Groups (expense and income categories)
Transactions
Budget calculations

Why Period-Based Budgeting Works

🎯 Clear Goals

Set specific targets for each period and measure success.

📊 Track Progress

Compare periods to see spending trends and improvements.

🔮 Plan Ahead

Create future periods to budget for upcoming expenses.

💰 Fresh Start

Each period is a new opportunity to stay on budget.

Period Types

📅 Period starts at specific day of the month (Recommended)

Periods start on the same day each month - set it to your payday. Most common and easiest to manage.

🔧 Periods have a day range

Set a fixed number of days for each period (e.g., every 30 days). Good for non-monthly income.

∞ Single infinite period

Tick "Create with a single infinite period" when you create the card. One continuous period with no end date - simple, but you lose the period-over-period comparisons.

Creating New Periods

Hooldbudget automatically creates your first period. To create future periods:

Go to Periods page
Click "New period"
Period dates are automatically calculated based on your settings
Groups are copied from the previous period
Repeating transactions are automatically created

The Periods page shows your periods two ways. Timeline lists them in order with the balance change of each one; Calendar lays them out across the months so you can see where the boundaries fall. Selecting a period opens its details: starting and planned end balance, income and expense totals with what is still upcoming, actual saving, average daily spend, days left, and a breakdown of realized versus planned money per group. Select multiple lets you delete several periods at once.

Closing a Period

Once a period is over you can close it. Closing writes the period off as final and protects it from accidental edits - a closed period rejects new transactions and group changes until you reopen it.

A period becomes closable the day after its end date
Closed periods are marked with a Closed badge in the timeline
You get a closing report summarising how the period actually went
Hooldbudget reminds you when a period has been sitting unclosed
Reopen a closed period any time if you need to correct something

💡 Tip: Create 1-2 periods ahead to plan future expenses and see your projected balance.

Setting Budgets

In the Planning page, you can set budget amounts for each expense group:

How to set budgets:

Go to Planning page
Click on a group to expand it
Enter budget amount in the "Budget" field
Click "Save"

Understanding Calculated Amounts

💵 Card balance

Your actual money on this card right now, after all realized transactions.

📊 Current end balance

Projected balance at the end of this period, based on budgets and transactions that are still to come.

💰 Current saving

What this period has put aside so far - income received minus money already spent.

💡 Unused budget

Budgeted money you have not spent yet. It is still reserved, so treat it as spoken for rather than free.

Screenshot: Calculated amounts on the dashboard

Modifying Period Dates

Need to adjust when a period starts or ends? You can modify dates anytime:

⚠️ Warning: Changing period dates may move transactions to different periods. Review carefully before saving.

Best Practices

✓ Align with payday: Start periods on or after your payday for easier budgeting
✓ Plan 1-2 periods ahead: See future expenses and adjust spending now
✓ Review at period end: Compare budget vs actual spending
✓ Adjust budgets: Update amounts based on reality, not wishful thinking

Start Planning Your Budget

Create future periods and set budgets to take control of your finances.

Go to Planning