Cash envelope budgeting for iPhone

Give every dollar a job before you spend it.

Envelope budgeting works because a shrinking envelope tells you where you stand long before your bank balance does. Copy a template, find the split for your paycheck, or read how the method actually works.

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iPhone · manual entry, no bank connection · 7-day free trial

Find your paycheck

Exact envelope splits for a given monthly take-home, by household.

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Copy a template

Ready-made envelope sets for a specific life situation.

College Student Envelope Budget Template A ready-to-use envelope budget template for college students: nine envelopes covering rent, groce... New Grad First Job Envelope Budget Template An envelope budget template for your first full-time paycheck: ten envelopes covering rent, stude... Newlywed Envelope Budget Template A twelve-envelope budget template for newly married couples, including separate personal spending... Single Parent Envelope Budget Template An envelope budget template for single parents covering childcare, groceries, kids' school costs,... Freelancer & Irregular Income Envelope Template An envelope budget template for freelancers with irregular income: a 25 percent tax envelope, an ... Teacher Envelope Budget Template An envelope budget template built for teachers: eleven envelopes including a summer gap fund, cla...

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See an example month

Hypothetical budgets showing how the numbers fit together.

If you were a college sophomore, your month probably looks like this A made-up but realistic $1,150/month college sophomore budget, split into envelopes. See where th... If you were a new grad at your first real job, your month probably looks like this A hypothetical $3,400/month first-job budget broken into 12 envelopes, including student loans. S... If you were a newlywed couple, your month probably looks like this A hypothetical $6,200/month newlywed budget split into 14 envelopes for two incomes, two cars, an... If you were a grad student on a stipend, your month probably looks like this A hypothetical $2,100/month grad stipend budget in 12 envelopes, including the conference travel ... If you were a barista with a side hustle, your month probably looks like this A hypothetical $2,650/month budget for a barista with 1099 side income, including the tax envelop... If you were a junior dev in a big city, your month probably looks like this A hypothetical $5,100/month junior developer budget for a high-cost city, in 13 envelopes. Good s...

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Read the research

What published studies say about why this method works.

The Pain of Paying: What Research Says About Cash vs. Cards Behavioral research on the pain of paying: why handing over cash feels costlier than tapping a ca... The Cashless Effect: What the Meta-Analytic Evidence Actually Shows A 2024 Journal of Retailing meta-analysis of 71 papers found a small but real cashless effect. Wh... Mental Accounting: The Research Behind Why Budgets Work at All Thaler's mental accounting explains why people treat identical dollars differently. The original ... Labeling Money: The Evidence That Earmarking Changes Spending Economics assumes every dollar is interchangeable. Controlled experiments say otherwise: attachin...

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Straight answers

The questions people actually ask about envelope budgeting.

What is envelope budgeting? Envelope budgeting is a method where you divide your income into labeled categories ("envelopes")... How do I start envelope budgeting? Start with one month of take-home pay, list your fixed bills first, then divide what remains acro... What is cash stuffing? Cash stuffing is envelope budgeting done with physical cash — you withdraw your spending money, d... Can you do envelope budgeting digitally without carrying cash? Yes. The method depends on assigning money to categories before spending, not on physical paper. ... What is a sinking fund and how is it different from savings? A sinking fund is money saved gradually for a specific expense you know is coming — car registrat... How many budget envelopes should I have? Six to ten for most people. Enough to separate fixed bills from the variable spending you actuall...

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Start with one month

List your bills, split what is left across a handful of envelopes, and log spending as it happens. The first month is data — month two is where it starts working.

Get Envelope Budget

Or make a shareable budget card first.