A monthly budget built on your real salary, not a template
Enter your salary, split it across three buckets — needs, wants, savings — and the screen answers the only question that matters mid-month: how much is left, and which limit are you close to.
How the screen is built
Your monthly salary sits at the top — entered once, edited whenever it changes. Under it are three cards: needs, wants and savings. Each one carries a limit you set, and shows what's been spent against it and what's left.
The month's name sits above with arrows either side. You can step back through previous months and review how each one went, but you can't step forward — a month that hasn't happened has no real numbers, and the screen doesn't pretend otherwise.
Inside each card is a "view expenses" control that opens the individual expenses counted against that bucket this month. The total isn't a sealed box: you can open it and see where it came from.
How an expense picks its bucket
Every expense category has a default assignment: home and groceries, bills, transport, health and family go to needs; eating out, shopping, entertainment, subscriptions and travel go to wants.
But a default is not a rule — the coffee on the way to work is a necessity for one person and a luxury for another. So you can press and hold any expense and drag it from one card to the other; the transaction's assignment moves with it and is saved.
That small detail is what makes the budget yours. Without it, any pre-baked split starts to feel wrong within two weeks and gets abandoned.
If you'd rather see these numbers by period and category than by bucket, the Expenses screen holds the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly views.
"What's left", and when you get warned
The important number here isn't what you've spent — it's what's left. What you've spent is history; what's left is the figure that changes a decision while you're still standing in the shop.
As spending approaches a limit the card warns you that you're close, and when you reach it, it says so. The warning arrives while you can still act on it, rather than at month's end when it's only an explanation.
To keep that figure honest, active recurring items due this month that haven't been logged yet are counted as already committed. So if you have subscriptions and recurring payments still to come, the remaining amount you're looking at is the one that survives them — not a number waiting to be ambushed.
Starting from zero: where the first limits come from
The worst thing you can do is invent numbers. Most first budgets fail because the limits were set by wishful thinking. The order that works:
- Log normally for a week without setting any limit — the goal is a realistic number, not discipline.
- Open the expense history and look at the month by category: what is genuinely taking the biggest share?
- Enter your salary on the budget screen and start with needs, since that's the bucket with the least room to move.
- Set the wants limit slightly under your real spending, not half of it — a drastic cut is the one that gets abandoned first.
- Leave the rest as savings, then review at month's end and adjust the numbers instead of judging yourself.
If the screen is still empty it walks you through it: pick a bucket, set its limit. The logging itself happens on the home screen in a single sentence, in Arabic or English.
Who this screen is for
The budgeting here is built for a household with monthly income, not for an investment portfolio:
- People on a monthly salary who want to know where they stand before the 20th.
- Households where more than one person spends and both need a split they can read.
- Anyone with variable income who'd rather adjust limits each month than follow a fixed rule.
- Anyone who tried an off-the-shelf percentage split and found it didn't match their reality.
What the budget screen does not do
It's a planning and tracking tool, and nothing beyond that:
- It moves no money, opens no savings account, and deducts nothing.
- It doesn't stop you spending — it warns you; the decision stays yours.
- It gives no investment advice and no personal financial plan; nothing here is financial advice.
- It can't see income or expenses you never logged, so the budget is as accurate as your logging.
- It doesn't show future months, because a month that hasn't started has no real figures.
Questions about budgeting
Do I have to enter my salary?
Salary is what makes the split meaningful, since it shows the limits as a share of your income — but you can set and follow bucket limits without it.
Can I move an expense from needs to wants?
Yes. Press and hold the expense and drag it onto the other card; the new assignment is saved with the transaction.
Can I look at a previous month's budget?
Yes, by stepping back through the months. Future months are closed off because there are no real figures for them yet.
Does the app transfer money into savings?
No. Savings here is a line in a plan, not an account holding money; Flosyfeen moves no funds at all.
What happens if I go over a limit?
The card warns you that you're close and then that you've reached it, and expenses keep logging normally — nothing gets locked.
The full thinking behind the app is in Why Flosyfeen.