MyAutoBudget — How it works

The weekly cash-flow cycle.

Four concepts working together. Each one is boring on its own. Together they stop lifestyle creep cold.

1

Income lands in the float.

Every paycheck — base, bonus, side hustle income, cash-outs, a reimbursement, whatever — deposits into a working float account. Not your long-term savings, not your brokerage. A dedicated account sized for one job: keeping your household finances stable.

The float is a shock absorber. It's the reason an unexpected $900 vet bill doesn't derail the month.

2

Friday: calculate, then transfer.

Every Friday, MyAutoBudget looks at your float, subtracts the next week's known bills, subtracts your agreed weekly discretionary number, and tells you how much to pay yourself.

The whole thing is surfaced as a one-line instruction on the dashboard: "Move $1,842 to checking." No spreadsheet math, no late-night reconciliation.

3

Live the week against one number.

You now have a weekly spend budget, divided across buckets you chose (yours, your partner's, joint, groceries, whatever). The dashboard shows a day-by-day balance line — what you should have in the float on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday — so surprises show up before they hit.

No category tracking. No transaction tagging. No monthly post-mortem. Just: here's the week, here's the number, go live your life.

4

Plan for savings the way you plan for groceries.

Want a slice of every Friday transfer flowing to high-yield savings? Add a bucket for it with a weekly amount. The Friday plan accounts for it the same way it accounts for Groceries — and once your transfer to checking lands, you move that bucket's amount across to HYS yourself. The system plans; you execute.

From there, the projection compounds your HYS balance at your configured yield, week by week. The result is a real curve, not a vibe — "This pace gets you to a paid-off mortgage in 2038. CoastFIRE in 2041." Same shape works for the brokerage, the 529, or extra principal on the mortgage. Name the bucket, set the weekly amount, decide where the move goes — the plan and the projection update together.

What Friday morning looks like.

You open the dashboard. It shows you the whole week, calculated from everything it knows about your accounts and your commitments.

Dashboard weekly plan view — balance card, transfer instruction, and day-by-day schedule

Discretionary spending, de-fought

Allocation buckets, tagged by owner.

After bills are covered, what's left is the weekly discretionary pool. MyAutoBudget slices it into buckets you name — Groceries, Kids, Personal (yours), Personal (your partner's), Vacation Fund, House Fund — and tags each bucket with an owner.

The result: a weekly number that both partners agreed to, a clean split of what's "ours" vs. what's "mine to spend without justifying," and a running balance that carries forward week to week. This is the plumbing that stops the "who paid for what" conversation from ever starting.

Goals attach to buckets: a weekly funding rate plus a target plus a current balance becomes an ETA. "Italy 2027" isn't a wish — it's 12 weeks out at the current pace. The same shape works when the bucket is savings rather than spending: a "HYS contribution" bucket at $200/week shows up in every Friday plan as a planned move.

Allocation buckets on the manage page — owner tags, weekly amounts, and running balances

The long view

Projections that account for everything, not just the easy stuff.

The reports page rolls your complete financial picture forward up to 20 years: assets compound weekly at their real rates, amortizing debts pay down on their actual schedules, credit cards revolve at their actual APRs, 401(k) contributions hit their actual annual caps, and pension benefits phase in on their actual eligibility dates.

Toggle inflation on for a bill-and-income escalation model. Turn on a career-break scenario. See the curve bend in real time.

Contextual insights call out the things you should actually know: "At this pace, your 401(k) hits the annual max in October — front-load it if you want the match earlier." "Your credit card revolves at 24% — paying an extra $400/week clears it 11 months sooner." Not passive information. Prompts.

Reports page with projection chart, contextual insights, and future-income panel

Set up in under fifteen minutes.

The onboarding wizard asks only what's needed to build your first weekly plan. Everything else can be refined later from the manage page — or imported directly from your existing spreadsheet.

1

Add your accounts

Checking, savings, float, HYS, brokerage, 401(k), credit cards, mortgage, student loans. Whatever you have.

2

Enter bills & income

Name, amount, recurrence (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, yearly, one-time). RSU vests and bonuses go here too.

3

See your first week

The dashboard builds instantly. You can refine buckets and goals from there — nothing is locked in.

Your money deserves an actual plan.

Start a 30-day free trial. Import your existing spreadsheet or start from scratch — either way, you'll have a weekly number and an honest projection by tonight.

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A method that works when your income is messy.