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Ridgeline Budget is a planning-first budget tool. You decide before the month begins how much you're allowed to spend on needs, and you fund wants from savings envelopes. Most apps (Mint, etc.) track what you spent and show you the damage after. YNAB is closer in philosophy but subscription-based and bank-linked.

Key differences: no bank account linking (you enter amounts manually), full end-to-end encryption, free to start with optional paid sync, and a specific focus on closing the month and distributing surplus to budget envelopes.

No. You can use Ridgeline Budget as a guest without any account — your data is saved locally on that device. Guest mode is limited to 5 budgets, 2 income sources, and 20 expenses.

Creating a free account removes those limits and unlocks the ability to sign in from the same device after a browser refresh. A paid plan is required to sync in real-time across multiple devices and share a workspace with a partner.

The core app is free to use. Guest mode (no account) lets you try it immediately on a single device, with some limits: up to 5 budgets, 2 income sources, and 20 expenses.

Creating a free account removes these limits on a single device. Syncing your data across multiple devices and collaborating with a partner requires a paid plan.

Two paid options are available: a $3/month subscription (includes all future features) or a $35 one-time purchase (includes most future features — significant additions may require a separate purchase). There are no ads either way.

Most people give up on budgeting apps because they require either constant manual entry (exhausting) or automatic bank syncing that feels like surveillance. Ridgeline Budget takes a middle path: you enter one number per spending source per day — the current balance on each card or account. That's it.

The system does the math. You review what looks like a want vs. a need, tag it, and move on. The daily check-in takes under 5 minutes once you're comfortable with the flow.

Needs are things you have to pay regardless: rent/mortgage, utilities, insurance, car payment, phone bill. These form your base monthly budget.

Wants are discretionary: dining out, entertainment, clothing, hobbies. In Ridgeline Budget, wants must come from a budget envelope — a pot of money you've already saved up from previous surplus months.

The line isn't always clear, and that's okay. You decide what counts as a need for your household. The system enforces the accounting, not the morality.

That's a deficit month. Before closing, you'll need to zero the balance by pulling money from a budget. The recommended approach is to create a "Expensive Months" priority budget specifically for this purpose — it fills up during good months and cushions you during rough ones.

If that budget is empty, you can pull from your personal or savings budgets. Enter it as an Extra Income line linked to the source budget, which reduces that budget's balance and zeroes the month.

Yes. On the Income page, you can mark each income source as something you count on or not. For variable income, enter a conservative base number you're confident about, and leave the rest as "extra income" entered on the Surplus page when it arrives.

Because the system doesn't require bank syncing, you're in full control of when income enters the calculation. Many freelancers enter client payments only when they clear.

The Surplus page is where you track spending in real time. It has four sections:

• Spending Sources — your credit cards and bank accounts. Enter the current balance; Clarity calculates what changed.
• Paid Separately — wants that came from a budget envelope. Mark them here to exclude them from the net spend.
• Extra Income — any money that arrived outside your regular income. Bonuses, reimbursements, etc.
• Manual Corrections — direct budget adjustments when something doesn't fit elsewhere.

Daily use is typically just updating Spending Sources (30 seconds) and tagging any obvious wants from the last 24 hours.

Paid Separately entries represent purchases that came out of a budget envelope rather than your monthly spending budget. When you tag a purchase as Paid Separately:

• It's excluded from the "net spent" calculation (so it doesn't count against your monthly target)
• The amount is debited from the specified budget

Example: you took the family out to dinner for $120. Tag it as Paid Separately from the "Family" budget. Your monthly math is unaffected; the Family budget decreases by $120.

Extra Income adds money to the surplus calculation. Use it for bonuses, side income, reimbursements you want to treat as income, or — when combined with a "From Budget" selection — transfers from a budget to cover a deficit.

Manual Corrections adjust a budget's balance directly without affecting the surplus calculation. Use it for budget-to-budget transfers, corrections, or when you receive a reimbursement that simply restores what was spent.

Both support a "Keep on Close" option for entries that recur every month — like a standing personal-to-savings transfer.

Priority (Fill First) — gets its share of surplus before standard budgets. Best for goals with a target: vacation fund, emergency fund, car maintenance. Set a maximum so the priority fill knows when to stop.

Standard — shares the remaining surplus proportionally or by a percentage split. Good for personal spending money, general savings, any budget you want to grow steadily.

No Fill (Skip Auto-Fill) — never receives surplus. Best for tracking reimbursable expenses, recording money borrowed, or any accounting that shouldn't affect the distribution.

It's a priority budget with a generous maximum (e.g. $1,000–$2,000). During good months, it gets priority fill. When you have a deficit month — spent more than you earned — you pull from this budget via an Extra Income entry to zero the balance before closing.

It acts as a buffer between real life and your other savings. Without it, a single unexpected expense forces you to raid vacation or auto funds.

Yes. Create a no-fill budget called "Work Reimbursements" (or similar). When you buy something reimbursable, add a Paid Separately entry from that budget. The budget balance goes negative — reflecting money owed to you.

When the reimbursement arrives, add a Manual Correction to that budget for the reimbursed amount. Balance returns to zero. The cycle repeats. None of this affects your monthly surplus calculation.

The Expenses Calendar budget is a system-managed envelope that accumulates month by month to cover your planned expenses. When you close a month, the amounts from your Expenses Calendar are credited to this budget so it has money ready when each bill arrives.

It can't be deleted because the app relies on it for the Expenses accounting to work correctly. It also doesn't receive surplus — it has its own funding path.

Enter your best estimate per month in the Expenses Calendar. For utilities, look at last year's bills and use month-specific amounts — higher in summer if you have AC, higher in winter for heat.

The individual cell in the expenses table is always editable. If the actual bill arrives and is different, update the cell for that month. The difference will naturally play out in the monthly surplus.

Ridgeline Budget uses AES-256-GCM encryption. When you enable encryption, a key is generated and stored only in your browser's local storage. Before any data is sent to the server, it's encrypted with this key. The server stores an unreadable ciphertext — it never sees the key.

Random key = strongest. A random 256-bit key is generated automatically. Passphrase = a key derived from a phrase you choose. Choose a long, random phrase (4+ unrelated words) for good security.

If you lose the device that holds the encryption key and have no backup, your data is unrecoverable. We cannot decrypt it for you — we don't have the key.

Best practices to prevent this:

• Export a backup regularly (Settings → Data Backup → Export)
• Transfer the key to multiple devices using the Encryption panel in Settings
• Store your exported JSON backup in a password manager or encrypted cloud storage

The tradeoff for strong privacy is personal responsibility for key management.

Passkeys are a modern, password-free sign-in method that uses your device's built-in authentication — Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, or a device PIN. They're more secure than passwords because they're unique to each site and can't be phished.

You can register a passkey under Settings → Passkeys → Add Passkey. Give it a name (e.g. "My iPhone") and your device will prompt you. You can register passkeys on multiple devices and delete any of them at any time.

Yes. Both are available in Settings → Account. To change your password, enter your current password and a new one. To delete your account, type DELETE in the confirmation field — this permanently removes all your data from the server.

Before deleting: export a backup first (Settings → Data Backup → Export) if you want a copy of your data.