Your first budget

Walk through one assigning session from zero categories to zero Ready to Assign.

The first time you open Budget after creating a profile, it's empty. No groups, no categories, Ready to Assign equal to the sum of your on-budget account balances. This page walks through one complete assigning session.

1. Create category groups

Open Budget and use the toolbar's overflow menu (⋮) to add three to five groups. A common starting set:

Immediate Obligations — rent, electric, internet, minimum loan payments
True Expenses — annual or quarterly bills paid monthly: car insurance, holidays, vehicle maintenance
Quality of Life — groceries, gas, dining out, entertainment
Just for Fun — hobbies, gifts to yourself, the things you don't want to feel guilty about
Savings Goals — emergency fund, vacation, next-car

You can rename or restructure later. Don't overthink it.

2. Create categories

Inside each group, add the specific lines. Three principles:

One row per real-world decision. Groceries and Dining out answer different questions, so they're separate. Light bulbs and Soap both come from "household" thinking, so they share one row.
Coarse beats fine for the first month. You can split Groceries into Produce, Meat, Pantry later if it teaches you something. Start broad.
Anything that comes out of your accounts needs a home. If there's no category for it, you can't assign to it, and the transaction will sit uncategorized.

3. Assign every dollar

Back on Budget, Ready to Assign is the cash sitting in your on-budget accounts. Click into each category's Assigned column and type a dollar amount. The Ready-to-Assign counter at the top ticks down.

The order most people find easiest:

Cover this month's bills first (Immediate Obligations).
Slice off the monthly share of True Expenses (annual ÷ 12).
Fund Quality of Life — groceries, gas, dining.
Whatever's left, push into Savings Goals or Fun.

When Ready to Assign hits zero, every dollar has a job. That's the goal of every month going forward.

4. Use Auto-assign for shortcuts

Once you have a month or two of history, Auto-assign can pre-fill the column from last month's spending, a rolling average, or your goal needs. The first month is the only one you'll do entirely by hand.

5. Set goals where they help

Goals turn fuzzy intentions into specific monthly targets. See Goals for the four types and when each fits.

What if you run out of money before you run out of categories?

That's the budget telling you the truth. Two options:

Lower assignments in lower-priority categories until Ready to Assign reaches zero.
Leave under-funded categories at zero this month and re-evaluate when more income arrives.

You haven't done anything wrong — you've made the gap visible for the first time.