Zero-Based Budget
Without Spreadsheet Rot
Spreadsheets start clean and end chaotic. You build a budget in January, update it for a few weeks, then life happens. By March the formulas are broken, the categories don't match reality, and you're not sure if that $200 was groceries or the electric bill. You stop trusting the numbers, so you stop looking. The spreadsheet rots, and you're back to guessing where your money went.
The moment most budgets stop being useful
You check your budget halfway through the month. Groceries is over by $38. Dining Out is under by about the same.
So you move money.
In a spreadsheet, that usually means:
- Editing the category amounts
- Making sure totals still add up
- Hoping you didn't break anything downstream
After doing this a few times, the numbers still add up, but you can no longer answer: What you originally planned. What changed. Or why.
At that point, people stop checking their budget because fixing it takes more effort than ignoring it.
How it's structured
Workspace Shape
What you track
Income, spending categories, monthly allocations
Structure
Parent budget log with child logs per category (Food, Transport, Fun, etc.)
Fields
How you work with it
Add your income
- Total available updates instantly
Allocate to categories
- Each category shows its budget
Log spending
- Category balance decreases, you see what's left
Transfer between categories
- Both balances adjust, history preserved