How to build a personal budget

Most budgets fail in the first month because they were written as a wish. A budget built from three months of your own history starts approximately right, and being approximately right is what keeps you using it.

So begin by reading what you already spent, by category, for the last two or three months. The categories you need are the ones your money already falls into — not a standard list borrowed from someone whose life is shaped differently.

The costs that break budgets are the ones that do not arrive monthly: an annual insurance premium, a renewal, a holiday, a repair you know is coming. Total them for a year, divide by twelve, and treat that as a fixed monthly line even in the months when nothing is due.

Do the same with recurring subscriptions, which are individually small and collectively not. Seeing them as one annual figure is usually the moment a few of them get cancelled.

A budget with thirty lines requires thirty decisions a month and will be abandoned. Six to ten categories is usually enough to change behaviour, because the point is not precision — it is noticing, early, when a category is running ahead of where it should be.

Countorra does not hold budget targets for you today. What it does have is the input that makes a budget realistic: categorized history, detected recurring charges, and spending compared against your own average. Build the budget from those, and keep the targets wherever you already keep plans.