Big expenses, minus the dread.
There’s a budget for groceries, gas, and streaming, but nothing that tells you what to set aside for the roof, the furnace, or the next set of tires before they fail. Budget Forecast is that missing budget.
The problem with rules of thumb
Ask the internet how much to budget for home maintenance and you’ll get a shrug dressed up as advice: “save 1% of your home’s value a year.” It’s a guess on top of a guess. Two houses worth $600,000 aren’t the same. One has a brand-new roof and furnace; the other is a year away from replacing both. A flat percentage can’t tell the difference, so people end up either over-saving for no reason or getting blindsided by a five-figure bill.
A sinking fund for everything you own
Accountants have had the right tool for this for a century: the sinking fund, money set aside a little at a time toward a known future expense. Budget Forecast applies that idea to your home. Each component is treated as a future bill with its own due date and its own price, grown for inflation. Spread each one over the months until it’s due, add them all up, and you get a single honest number to set aside every month.
Because it works from real timelines, the number stays truthful. It counts down as time passes, rises if you fall behind, and drops the moment you log what you’ve saved, so it always reflects where you actually stand, not where a spreadsheet wishes you were.
What it grew into
Home maintenance was the start. The same method works for anything with big, lumpy, save-ahead costs, so Budget Forecast now covers vehicles, tech, pets, and travel, lets you build your own budget type, and rolls everything into one household number. There’s even an AI-assisted setup that drafts a budget from a plain-English description, for you to review.
From a hunch to a plan you can act on
Every budget runs on the same sinking-fund method and rolls up into a single household set-aside, with charts, a year-by-year schedule, and a shared timeline of what’s coming. No deficits, no doom, just a number you can actually save.
- ✓Home, vehicle, tech, pet, travel, and your own types
- ✓One combined monthly total across everything
- ✓Honest, inflation-aware numbers you can print or export
A few things we won’t compromise on
Free, and anonymous-first
The planner is free and works right away, with no account or sign-up wall. One budget stays free forever; a free account only adds syncing across your devices.
Honest numbers, not rules of thumb
Real components, real timelines, real inflation. The number tells you the truth, even when the truth is that you’re a little behind, instead of a comfortable flat percentage.
Private by default
Your plan lives on your device unless you choose to sync it. We’re not in the business of selling what you own or what you’re saving for.
Built for real homeowners
Plain language, real-world costs, and a layout that works on the phone in your kitchen as well as the laptop on your desk.
Start your sinking fund today
Open the planner, check off what you own, and see your monthly number in about five minutes.
Open the planner →