Private Accounts in a Shared Budget: Keeping Some Things Your Own
How to keep a personal account private inside a shared household budget: what to keep separate, how to budget around it, and how to stay honest with a partner.
The Kemback blog
Practical guides to budgeting, saving, bills, debt and sharing money at home.
Moving Money Between Envelopes Without Guilt
Moving money between envelopes is how a budget adapts, not a failure. Learn when moving money is healthy, when it signals a problem, and simple rules to follow.
Kemback's Alerts and Weekly Summary: What to Turn On
A guide to Kemback's six alerts and the Monday weekly summary: what each one watches, sensible thresholds to start with, and how to get them by email or iPhone.
How Big Should Your Emergency Fund Be? A Way to Find Your Number
Three to six months of expenses is a guideline, not a rule. Learn to work out your own emergency fund size from essential costs, job stability and dependents.
Autopay: Pros, Cons and How to Use It Safely
When automatic bill payments help and when they backfire, which bills to put on autopay, and the simple safeguards that keep autopay from causing overdrafts.
Ready to Assign: What It Means When It's Positive, Zero or Negative
The ready-to-assign number in an envelope budget tells you a lot. Learn what a positive, zero or negative figure means, why it happens and what to do next.
How to Check Your Balances Match After Switching Apps
After moving to a new money app, check every account balance to the cent. A step-by-step method, plus how to read a difference to find the transaction at fault.
Spending Alerts That Actually Help (and Ones That Just Nag)
Which money alerts are worth turning on, how to set thresholds that fit your budget, and how to avoid alert fatigue so the important warnings still get seen.
The 50/30/20 Rule: When It Works and When It Doesn't
How the 50/30/20 budget rule splits needs, wants and savings, worked examples at different incomes, where it breaks down, and how to adjust it to fit your life.
Assets vs Liabilities: A Plain Guide for Household Finances
What counts as an asset, what counts as a liability, and the grey areas in between, with worked examples so you can sort your own accounts with confidence.
Where Does My Money Go? How to Find Your Top Spending Categories
A step-by-step way to find where your money goes: gather three months of transactions, clean the categories, rank them, and focus on the few that matter.
Annual vs Monthly Subscriptions: Which Actually Saves Money?
How to tell whether paying yearly for a subscription really saves money, with a simple break-even test, worked examples, and how to budget for annual renewals.