Yearfolio
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Budget by the year, not the month

Know how this year ends, before it does. Log what you earn and the few major expenses you have, enter what your wallets hold at month end, and Yearfolio works out the rest.

Start planning
  • Free, no card
  • No bank connection
  • About ten minutes a month
  • Practice year to try it
The Yearfolio table for 2026: months across the top, and rows for the end-of-month balance, a wallet, salary and other income, then general expenses, rent and travel. Eight months are completed and four are still estimates.
One year on one screen. Completed months on the left, estimates on the right, and where the year ends up always in view. Any month that would run you out of money is flagged in red long before you get there.

The idea

Stop sorting groceries into categories

Most budgeting apps want every transaction filed under a category. It works for about three weeks. Then you fall behind, the numbers stop being true, and the app turns into another thing you are failing at.

Yearfolio only asks about the money you actually make decisions about: what came in, and the handful of expenses major enough to be worth naming. Everything routine, the groceries and the fuel and the coffee, is one number called general expenses, and you never type it. It comes out of arithmetic you cannot get wrong, because your bank already knows the answer:

September started with 11,300 and ended with 12,300, and 3,330 came in. You named 1,100 of rent. So the rest of the month, all of it, cost 1,230. You did not track a single receipt to learn that, and there is no way to get it wrong: your bank already knew the answer.

Once a month

The whole routine, about ten minutes

On the first of the month, with a coffee. Yearfolio asks two questions and you are done until next month.

  1. What is left

    Open the month that just ended and type what each wallet holds: the bank, the other bank, the cash in the drawer. Last month's figures are already filled in, so most months this is a glance and a correction.

  2. Was anything major

    Yearfolio shows what the month spent and asks how much of it deserves a name. Rent, a flight, a new laptop. Naming something moves it out of general expenses and under a name and purpose you chose. Nothing major? Leave it empty.

  3. That is it

    General expenses is worked out and stored, the month is marked completed, and every month after it re-estimates from the balance you just confirmed. You see straight away where the year now ends up.

In practice

What a month end actually looks like

Two questions, and the arithmetic is done

Yearfolio shows you what the month spent and asks how much of it deserves a name. Everything you do not name stays as general expenses, worked out from figures you already confirmed.

  • Your own categories first, most recent at the front
  • Copy a repeating cost onto the rest of the year at once
  • Naming never moves a balance, only splits what was spent
The naming step: a bar showing 1,100 named of 2,330 spent, a rent line, a chip for travel, and the sum that arrives at 1,230 of general expenses.
Naming an expense splits the month's spending. It never changes your balance.

Then the pattern shows up on its own

Individual months stay noisy: this year runs from 683 to 1,416. What settles down is the average of the last six months, and it settles fast. From the fourth month it barely moves again, and that is the figure the rest of the year is estimated from.

  • Completed months and estimates are marked apart
  • A six-month average sits behind every month
  • Compare years once you have more than one
running average● one completed month○ a month still on plan
The line is what you would believe having seen only the months to its left. The band is ten per cent either side of where it ends up, so once the line is inside the band, another month stops changing the answer. Illustrative figures from the worked year used across this site.

The shift

From filing the past to shaping the year

Both of these describe the same twelve months. Only one of them is work you will still be doing in March.

Tracking the past

Every purchase filed under a heading, all year, by you.

365 marks, one per card payment in a year. Sorting them tells you where last month went.

Planning the year

Four numbers a month, and the twelve of them are a plan.

Twelve months, eight of them lived and four still on plan. It tells you where next December ends up.

What you get, and when

The first month is a fact. The first year is a plan.

  1. After one month

    One real number

    What an ordinary month costs you, worked out from your own balance. No receipts, no categories, and nothing to disagree with.

  2. After three

    A range, not a guess

    The average stops moving. You now know what a month costs the way you know your rent, and every month still ahead of you estimates from that.

  3. After six

    A year you can see

    December becomes a figure rather than a hope, and any month that would put you in the red is flagged while there is still time to move something.

  4. Next year

    A plan, and a plan B

    Build the year from the one you actually lived, then copy it and test the things that worry you: a move, a raise, a stretch without work.

And then: what if it goes differently

Once a year is real, you can copy it and change it freely. Rent goes up, a contract ends, you take three months off. The copy answers, and your live plan never moves until you say so.

  • Save as many what-ifs as you like, side by side
  • Apply one to the live plan, or throw it away
  • Months that go below zero are flagged in every one
the year as plannedrent goes up 300 in Julythree months without work
A scenario is a copy of your plan you can push around: change a cost, delete an income, move a month. The live plan does not budge until you apply it. The useful part is the month it dips below zero, because a December that ends fine can still hide a May that does not.

Whether this suits you

Residual budgeting is a real trade. It is worth knowing which side of it you are on before you sign up.

A good fit if

  • You have tried expense trackers and stopped using them.
  • You want to know if this year works out, not what you spent on lunch.
  • Your income is steady enough to plan around, even if it varies a bit.
  • Ten minutes a month sounds like something you would actually do.

A poor fit if

  • You want every transaction categorised and charted.
  • You want the app to connect to your bank and import for you.
  • You need to split shared costs with a partner or a flatmate.
  • You are looking for a joint budget rather than a personal one.

What else is in there

Next year, from this year

Build the next year from the one you just lived, then adjust. Your general expenses figure is real by then, so the plan starts from evidence.

What-if without the mess

Save a scenario, change what you like, see how the year lands. Your live plan stays untouched until you apply it.

Your numbers, exportable

Any year downloads as a CSV you can open in Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets. It is your data and you can take it with you.

Trends, not just a table

Charts for general expenses and for what your wallets hold, across the whole year. Once you have a second year, last year sits behind this one.

Fix a month you got wrong

Open any completed month and change what you typed. General expenses is worked out again, and the difference flows forward on its own.

No bank connection

Yearfolio never touches your bank. You type a handful of numbers a month, which is also why there is nothing to leak.

Try it with a practice year

The first run offers a year of made-up numbers, so you can see how the table behaves before you put anything real in it. Nothing it writes is kept.

Start planning

Free. No card, no bank connection.