Can I get the good seats?
Concert tickets are a want, not a surprise. Give them a bucket and they stop competing with groceries.
Fun money, left
$0.00
Refills every payday, whatever you did last cycle.
Friends just invited you out to dinner
Can I actually afford to say yes?
Not “is there money in my account?” That is never the real question. Bucket Budget already put this paycheck where it belongs, so the number you need is waiting before you ask.
iPhone, iOS 17 or later. Coming to the App Store.
Your buckets
Payday in 6 days.
Food and going out$214.60
$235.40 of $450.00 spent
Bills and subscriptions$94.00
$186.00 of $280.00 spent
Car$315.00
$35.00 of $350.00 spent
Buffer$641.80
$258.20 of $900.00 spent
Your bank balance is not your money.
It is a number with no memory. It does not know that card charges are still pending, that rent leaves on the first, or that half of last night’s bill is coming back to you. Checking it before you spend is guessing with extra steps.
Bucket Budget starts from what you have already promised each dollar, so what is left is genuinely left.
Your bank says
$0.00
Card charges that have not posted−$612.00
Rent, leaving on the first−$1,450.00
Last night’s dinner, three friends still owe you+$96.00
Actually yours to spend$0.00
Not “where did it all go?”
Most budgeting apps are good at telling you what already happened. This one is built for the two seconds before you decide.
Is this the week I stop eating out?
The bar under each bucket turns amber before it turns red, so you get the nudge while you can still act on it.
Food and going out
$0.00
Six days to payday. Worth knowing now.
Did that dinner wreck the month?
Overspending one bucket does not blow up the budget. It comes out of the buffer, which exists for exactly this.
Buffer, after the dinner
$0.00
Still standing. That is the whole point of it.
A vacation is just a bucket that fills up.
Set the amount and the month, and the app works out what each payday has to put in. The bar counts in paydays rather than percent, so progress is something you can feel: five more and it is booked. When it lands you already have the money, so the trip is never a decision about debt.
Portugal5 paydays to go
$0.00
$1,480.00 of $2,200.00 saved
One segment per payday. 8 in, 5 to go.
Set September as the deadline and the app works out the rest: $180.00 a payday gets you there.
Nothing here shames you.
Every budget gets broken. The buffer is the bucket that absorbs it, so one expensive week stays one expensive week instead of a spreadsheet you stop opening.
1. You overspend
−$0.00
Food went past its budget on a Friday night.
2. The buffer covers it
$0.00
The overspend comes out of unassigned money, not out of rent.
3. Payday resets it
$0.00
Food starts the new cycle at its full budget. Nothing negative carries over.
Every payday
Two minutes, and the month is decided.
Confirm the paycheck, adjust anything that has drifted, done. Leftovers carry forward, overdrawn buckets start clean, and the rest of the cycle is just logging.
Food and going out
$0.00
Transport
$0.00
Portugal
$0.00
Buffer
$0.00
How it works
Three things, then it runs itself.
01
Name your buckets
Rent, food, transport, whatever you actually think in. Give each one an amount per paycheck. The leftover lands in your buffer, which is the bucket that catches surprises.
02
Log it in about five seconds
$0
Amount, a couple of words, done. Type “lunch” and it already knows which bucket you mean, because it learns the words you use from everything you have logged before. Most expenses take about five seconds.
03
Check without opening anything
Put your most-used buckets on the Home Screen or Lock Screen. Ask Siri. The balance you need is usually one glance away, which is the difference between a budget you keep and one you abandon in March.
The budget that keeps losing is the wrong budget.
Go over on the same bucket three cycles running and that is not a discipline problem; it is a number problem. The app watches for the pattern and tells you what you actually spend, so payday takes one tap instead of another round of wishful thinking.
It works the other way too. Consistently under means money sitting idle that a goal could be using.
Food and going outOver, 3 cycles
You budget
$450.00
You actually spend
$0.00
Try $505.00 next payday
Averaged over the last three cycles and rounded to the nearest five dollars. One tap at rollover applies it.
Know what’s left before you spend it.
Bucket Budget is almost ready for the App Store. It works offline, holds no connection to your bank, and carries no ads or tracking.
Coming to the App Store