From bank balance to a plan for real life.

The mental model

Pigget is built around one constraint:

The money in your budget accounts must equal Ready to Assign plus the money available across your categories.

That relationship prevents the same money from being promised twice. Assigning €100 to groceries does not move cash between bank accounts; it changes the purpose of €100 already in those accounts. Spending €20 on groceries reduces both the bank balance and the amount available for groceries.

This is called zero-based budgeting or envelope budgeting. “Zero-based” means the plan aims to bring Ready to Assign to zero by giving every available unit a job. It does not mean spending everything or leaving accounts at zero.

The method has four repeating actions:

1. Money arrives in a budget account.
2. You assign it to categories.
3. Transactions reduce those categories.
4. You adjust the assignments when priorities change.

Accounts answer “where”; categories answer “why”

This distinction is the foundation of the whole system.

You do not need a separate bank account for every goal. A single savings account can hold money for insurance, travel, repairs, and emergencies. Pigget’s category balances preserve those boundaries.

Account types

Budget accounts participate in the plan. Positive balances contribute spendable money. Normal current, cash, and savings accounts generally belong here.

Credit accounts also participate in the budget. Their negative balances reduce the net money available, and payments between budget accounts are treated as transfers.

Tracking accounts appear in net worth but never affect Ready to Assign. Investments, property value, and assets you do not intend to spend from belong here.

Debts track what is owed outside the envelope budget. Each debt can have a repayment category that holds actual cash until a payment is made.

Ready to Assign is money without a job

Income and other positive transactions assigned to Ready to Assign increase it. Giving money to categories decreases it. Returning money from a category increases it again.

Three states matter:

• Positive: some money still needs a purpose.
• Zero: every unit currently available has a job.
• Negative: more has been assigned than the budget currently holds.

Pigget distinguishes a negative amount that is covered by named, dated expected income from a plan that is larger than both current and expected money. The number still remains negative because expected income is not spendable yet.

A practical priority order

When money arrives, assign it by asking:

1. What must be paid before more money arrives?
2. Which irregular costs am I already committed to?
3. Which future problem can I make smaller now?
4. What flexible spending matters during this period?

There is no universal correct category list. The useful plan is the one that helps your household decide.

Targets describe needs; expected income describes timing

Neither feature adds money to the budget.

Targets

A target tells Pigget what a category should receive or hold. Pigget supports several kinds of intention:

• fund a fixed amount every month;
• build a balance by a month or exact date;
• allow a weekly or monthly spending amount;
• prepare for spending on a repeating schedule.

Targets drive progress and underfunded indicators. They are prompts, not withdrawals. Missing a target leaves the category short of the goal but does not falsify the account balance.

For a €600 annual insurance bill, a balance-by-date target can show the monthly amount needed to reach €600 before renewal. After the bill is paid, the category falls and begins preparing for the next occurrence.

Expected income

Expected income is money you have reason to believe will arrive: salary, an issued invoice, or an approved refund. It helps Pigget explain whether a plan is temporarily ahead of cash.

It never enters an account, funds a category, changes net worth, or becomes spendable. On its due date it stops supporting the plan. When the real transaction arrives, that transaction—not the expectation—creates money in Ready to Assign.

Transactions connect the plan to reality

Every transaction belongs to an account and has an amount in that account’s currency. For budgeting, it is also assigned to Ready to Assign, a category, a split across categories, or a transfer.

Inflows

Salary and other new money normally go to Ready to Assign. You then deliberately distribute the new amount among categories.

A refund may instead return directly to the category that originally paid the expense. That restores the category’s available amount rather than presenting the refund as new income.

Outflows

A purchase assigned to groceries becomes negative grocery activity. The category calculation is straightforward:

rollover from last month + assigned this month + activity = available now

Because spending activity is negative, a €400 grocery category with a €75 purchase has €325 available.

Splits

One transaction can touch several categories. Split a supermarket receipt when part is groceries and part is household supplies, or split a hotel charge when part will be reimbursed.

Review status

Bank-imported transactions can carry a useful suggested category while still waiting for your confirmation. Review is separate from categorization: a correct guess still deserves a human glance.

Cleared and reconciled

An uncleared transaction is known but has not settled at the institution. A cleared transaction has settled. Reconciliation compares Pigget’s cleared balance with the institution’s cleared balance and locks the verified history. Pending transactions are excluded from that comparison.

Changing the plan is normal

Suppose dining has €120 available and household repairs has €0. A €70 repair arrives. The repair category becomes €70 overspent.

Move €70 from dining to repairs. The underlying money never changes; only the decision changes:

Cover overspending as soon as it is practical. A red category is not a moral judgment; it is a warning that another promise is currently backed by less money than it appears.

You can also return an unnecessary surplus to Ready to Assign or move it directly into another category.

What happens at month-end

Positive category balances roll into the next month. Money saved for insurance, holidays, repairs, or any other future job remains attached to that job.

Negative category balances do not quietly follow along. Pigget absorbs each category’s overspending into the next month’s Ready to Assign. This prevents a surplus elsewhere from disguising the fact that the overall plan spent money it had promised to another purpose.

You do not need a ceremonial “close month” operation. Before moving on, it is still wise to:

• review uncategorized and pending transactions;
• cover overspending where possible;
• reconcile important accounts;
• inspect targets that are repeatedly unrealistic;
• decide whether large surpluses still have the right job.

Transfers, credit, and debt

Transfers between budget accounts

Link the outgoing and incoming sides. The pair is budget-neutral: cash moved, but total budget money and category balances did not.

If currencies differ, Pigget preserves both native amounts and the recorded base-currency value. A transfer fee can remain visible as spending while the rest of the movement stays neutral.

Credit accounts

An on-budget credit balance is part of the same plan. Purchases still reduce their spending categories. Paying the card from another budget account is a transfer, so the payment itself is not counted as a second expense.

Other debts

Mortgages, personal loans, student loans, and similar liabilities can sit outside the spending budget while remaining in net worth. Their repayment categories hold real cash. Recording a payment reduces both that reserved cash and the amount owed.

Multiple currencies without imaginary precision

Each account keeps its native currency. Pigget also stores the value used by the budget when a transaction is recorded, so closed history does not change whenever today’s exchange rate moves.

The budget’s base currency provides one planning unit across accounts. Public ECB reference rates are used where available. Foreign targets keep their original currency and are translated for each month’s planning calculation.

This creates two useful views:

• native balance: what the institution actually holds;
• budget or book value: the stable base-currency value used by the plan.

Market value can move while book value remains historical. When a foreign holding is disposed of or converted, Pigget can recognize the realized currency gain or loss instead of silently rewriting earlier months.

Sub-budgets, sharing, and reports

Sub-budgets

A category can fund a smaller internal budget. This is useful when one top-level decision—such as travel, a renovation, or a child’s allowance—needs its own detailed categories without cluttering the main plan.

Money is assigned once to the parent category. The sub-budget then divides that amount internally, so the same cash is not consumed twice.

Household sharing

Shared budgets let invited people see and edit the same plan through iCloud, according to the permission chosen by the owner. A shared budget works best when the household agrees on category meanings and reviews changes openly; synchronization cannot replace that conversation.

Reports and forecasts

Reports summarize the facts already present in the ledger: spending, net worth, target progress, recurring charges, and gaps such as overspending or unfunded priorities.

Forecasts are directional tools, not promises. They combine current balances, known plans, expected inflows, and detected recurring activity to show where the plan may become tight. Use them to ask better questions, then return to the budget to make the decision.

The sustainable routine

Most households need three rhythms:

• During the week: review transactions and cover overspending.
• When income arrives: assign the new money by priority.
• Around month-end: reconcile, inspect rollover, and revise targets.

The goal is not perfect bookkeeping. The goal is a plan whose available amounts remain believable enough to guide the next purchase.