Setting Up Your First Budget in Kemback

A budget is only useful if it’s realistic, and the most realistic starting point is what you already spend. Kemback can build a first draft from your history, and then let you run it in whichever style suits you: a plan per category, or envelope budgeting where every dollar gets a job.

This guide covers both, step by step. You’ll need some transactions in Kemback first, ideally two or three months of them, from an import or a switch from Quicken or Mint.

The two modes, briefly

Kemback has two budget modes that share one set of data:

Category mode: “Set a monthly plan per category and see how much of it is left.” Good if you think in terms of “about $600 a month on groceries” and want to know how you’re tracking.
Envelope mode: “Give every dollar a job; envelope balances carry forward and overspending comes out of next month.” Good if you want to assign the money you actually have, and have leftovers build up for later.

You can switch between them at any time. Switching never changes your plans or transactions, so you can try one for a month and switch back if it doesn’t fit.

Step 1: Open the budget and start from your spending

Open Budget from the sidebar. The header shows the month, with ← and → buttons to move between months, and a Settings button.

If nothing is budgeted yet, a card headed Start from your spending appears. It explains: “What you spent per category, averaged over [the last three full months] and rounded up. Untick anything you don’t want to budget, or change an amount.”

Each category is listed with:

a tick box (ticked by default),
what you spent, as “about $X a month”,
an amount you can edit.

At the bottom, a running total shows how many categories you’ve chosen and what they add up to each month.

Making the suggestions yours

The suggestions are a draft, not a verdict. A few things to adjust:

Untick one-offs. If a category only shows spending because of a single big purchase, like a new laptop under Shopping, untick it or lower it.
Lower what you want to cut. If Dining out averaged $410 and you’d like to spend less, type $300.
Raise what was unusually low. If you were away for a month, Groceries may look too small.

When it looks right, choose Add to budget. If you’d rather start from a blank page, choose Not now and type amounts yourself.

Step 2: Read the budget in category mode

New budgets start in category mode. The top of the page shows four figures:

Income: money that came in this month.
Planned: the total of your plans.
Spent: what’s gone out against them.
Overspent: the total of categories that have gone below zero.

Below is the table, one row per category:

Column	What it means
Category	The category name
Planned	Your plan for this month. Click it to type a new amount; it saves when you press Enter or click away.
Activity	What was spent (or refunded) this month
Left	Planned minus spent. Green while there’s money left, red once you’re over.
Roll over	Tick it to carry this category’s leftover (or overspending) into next month

When to use Roll over

Most categories reset each month, and that’s fine for groceries or fuel. Roll over is for categories that are lumpy:

Car maintenance: plan $75 a month. Nothing happens for four months, then a $280 repair. With Roll over ticked, the $300 that built up covers it.
Gifts: plan $50 a month and let it build towards December.

Rolled-over amounts show under the category name as “carried in”.

Step 3: Or switch to envelope mode

If you’d rather budget the money you have, open Settings and choose Switch to envelope mode. Kemback explains the change and confirms: “Switch? Your plans and transactions stay exactly as they are.”

In envelope mode, the page changes in a few ways:

A Ready to Assign box appears at the top. It’s the money that hasn’t been given a job yet. If you assign more than you have, it turns into Over-assigned.
The Planned column becomes Assigned, and Left becomes Available.
Every envelope’s balance carries forward automatically, so there’s no Roll over column.
If you overspend an envelope, the overspending comes out of next month.

Set your starting funds

Envelope budgeting starts from the money you have on hand. In Settings:

Budget starts (YYYY-MM): the first month of your budget, for example 2026-11.
Starting funds (USD, envelope mode): what you had available to budget at the start, for example the balance of your checking account after this month’s bills, 3,200.00.
Choose Save.

A worked example

Say your starting funds are $3,200 and you assign:

Rent: $1,500
Groceries: $600
Utilities: $180
Transport: $220
Dining out: $250
Emergency fund: $300

That’s $3,050 assigned, so Ready to Assign shows $150. Give that $150 a job too: perhaps more to the emergency fund, or a new envelope for a holiday. When your paycheck arrives and is imported, Ready to Assign rises by that amount, ready to be assigned again.

If Dining out ends the month at -$40, you’ll see it in red under Available, and that $40 comes out of next month’s money. The simple fix is to move $40 from another envelope this month by lowering its Assigned amount and raising Dining out’s.

Step 4: Keep it running each month

At the start of each month, use → to move to it. Then:

Category mode: plans are set month by month and don’t copy forward on their own. While a month has nothing budgeted, the Start from your spending card appears again, so filling it takes a minute. Check last month’s Left column first; it shows where your plans were off.
Envelope mode: assign this month’s income until Ready to Assign reaches zero.

During the month, two other places help you keep an eye on things:

Overview shows a bar for every budgeted category: green while you’re under, amber from 80% used, and red once you’re over, with the amount left or how far over you are.
Alerts can tell you when a category reaches a share of its budget. The Over budget alert starts at 100%, and you can set it lower, say 90%, to get a warning before you’re over.

Savings goals and envelopes

If you use envelope mode, a savings goal can be funded from an envelope. Open Goals, add a goal with a target and an optional date, and under Save in choose the envelope. Kemback shows how far along you are and what it needs each month, for example “$200 a month to reach it by June 2027”. A goal can also be funded from an account instead, such as a dedicated savings account, which suits category mode well.

Which mode should you choose?

There’s no wrong answer (see category vs envelope budgets for a longer comparison), and because switching is lossless you don’t have to decide forever.

Choose category mode if you want a light-touch budget: a target per category and a quick view of how you’re doing.
Choose envelope mode if your income is irregular, if you want to plan for big annual costs, or if you like knowing every dollar has a purpose.

Many people start in category mode to learn their numbers, then move to envelopes once they know them. Kemback keeps the same plans either way.

#budgeting #envelope budgeting #kemback guides

This article is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice. For decisions about your situation, talk to a qualified professional.

Setting Up Your First Budget in Kemback (Category or Envelope)