Looking for a Goodbudget alternative?

If you budget in Goodbudget, you've already made the choice most apps steer you away from: you type your money in, and you fill envelopes before you spend from them. We make a budgeting app that asks the same of you, so keep that in mind as you read. The method isn't why anyone leaves, so we'll start with what Goodbudget gets right.

What Goodbudget gets right

The envelope method, made digital. An envelope holds what you put in it, spending comes out of it, and an empty envelope is an answer. Goodbudget syncs between the people in a household, runs on the web and on both phones, and its free plan asks for nothing but the typing. Since August 2024 its Premium plan can also import transactions from a bank, so typing is optional there.

The question envelopes leave open

Envelopes answer where the money went and how much is left in each, and they don't say when. The rent is due on the 1st, the card on the 22nd, the paycheck on alternate Fridays, and an envelope holds no dates, so "can I pay everything before the next check?" still gets worked out in your head or on paper beside the app.

The horizon is the other gap. An envelope budget covers this period, and what the next three months look like is a different question.

Keeping the envelopes

Keep the envelope discipline: categories with rollover, money assigned before it's spent, money moved between envelopes when one runs short, and manual entry that stays manual if you want it to.

Then add the dates: a calendar with every bill and paycheck on its day and a running balance for each day, a budget period that follows your paycheck, a debt payoff plan reading the same numbers, and one sentence that says how long you stay above your floor.

Envelopes as category budgets

A Household budget card that carried money in, marked ON PLAN. Its bar is labeled Committed slash Planned plus Rollover and reads 0 dollars of 171 dollars 92. With nothing spent yet, the bar is empty plan up to a marker where this period's plan ends, then a faint purple zone past it for the money carried in, with a rule under the bar spanning the plan. Under it five figures: planned 100 dollars with a pencil to edit it, spent 0 dollars, scheduled 0 dollars, remaining 100 dollars, and with rollover 171 dollars 92, which is what the category holds in total. Then a line reading Rollover: 71 dollars 92 carried in, 71 dollars 92 still set aside, and buttons for Add Scheduled, Move money, Rollover: Unspent, Pause and Remove Budget.A Household budget card that carried money in, marked ON PLAN. Its bar is labeled Committed slash Planned plus Rollover and reads 0 dollars of 171 dollars 92. With nothing spent yet, the bar is empty plan up to a marker where this period's plan ends, then a faint purple zone past it for the money carried in, with a rule under the bar spanning the plan. Under it five figures: planned 100 dollars with a pencil to edit it, spent 0 dollars, scheduled 0 dollars, remaining 100 dollars, and with rollover 171 dollars 92, which is what the category holds in total. Then a line reading Rollover: 71 dollars 92 carried in, 71 dollars 92 still set aside, and buttons for Add Scheduled, Move money, Rollover: Unspent, Pause and Remove Budget.
A category card that carried money in: the envelope's rollover, as a budget. Live capture, demo data.

Forecast Commander is a complete budgeting app that works the way you already do: you type what you know, and nothing connects to your bank. Category budgets carry over the way envelopes do. The calendar shows money that hasn't moved yet on the day it will, the forecast sums that up in a sentence, and the payoff planner shows what an extra payment buys. A statement file finds the bills that repeat, so most of the typing happens once.

If Goodbudget does what you need, keep it. If you've caught yourself working out the "when" on paper beside it, this does that part for you.

Start your 35-day trial

Free for 35 days with no card, and you set your envelopes up as categories with rollover. Read the Budgets guide.

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