Pick the month
The toolbar opens on the current month. Choose another month or year to look back, to plan ahead or to fill in a month you missed; every month keeps its own income, expenses and budget targets.
BudgetSnapshotFree Online Budget Tracker
Track income and expenses month by month: a dashboard with your net balance and savings rate, an expense donut chart and category bars, a three-month comparison, budget targets with warnings, export and import as a file, and a clean print view. Your figures stay in your browser: nothing is uploaded.
Total Income
$0.00
Total Expenses
$0.00
Net Balance
$0.00
Savings Rate
0%
Income Sources
Expenses
Expense Breakdown
Category Comparison
Three-Month Comparison
Total expensesBudget Targets
How to Track a Monthly Budget: Step-by-Step
Add your income
Click Add Income, name the source (salary, freelance, rent received, a side business) and enter the amount. Add every source for the month so the savings rate is worked out on the right total.
Record expenses by category
Click Add Expense, pick one of the fourteen quick categories or type your own, enter the amount and choose a colour. Add the same category again and the amounts are combined into one line, so receipts can go in one at a time.
Set budget targets
Open Manage Budgets, choose a category and type the most you want to spend on it this month. A progress bar follows your spending and turns amber at three quarters and red at the limit, and a warning appears the moment you go over.
Read the dashboard
The four tiles show total income, total expenses, the net balance and the savings rate, each with a note against last month. The donut chart, the category bars and the top three categories show where the money went; the comparison card lines up the last three months.
Keep a copy
Export saves every month to one file on your device; Import brings it back, or moves it to another browser or computer. Print gives a one-page view of the month without the buttons. Everything else stays in this browser's storage.
Why Choose BudgetSnapshot?
🔒 Your money, your device
A budget is a list of what you earn and what you spend, and it is nobody else's business. This tool has no server side and no account: the figures are kept in your browser's storage on this device, and the only copies that leave it are the files you export yourself.
📅 Every month on its own
Months do not blur together. Each one keeps its own income sources, expense categories and budget targets, and you can move between them with two drop-downs. The dashboard says how this month compares with the last, and the comparison card shows three months side by side.
🎯 Targets that speak up
Set a limit for a category and the tool watches it for you: a progress bar that changes colour as you approach the limit, an over-budget note on the expense line, and a warning the moment an entry pushes you past it. No spreadsheet formula to maintain.
🥧 Charts that need no setting up
The donut chart, the category bars and the top three categories draw themselves from your entries, in the colours you picked. There is nothing to configure, and they redraw the instant you add, edit or delete a line.
âš¡ Quick to fill in
Fourteen quick categories, Enter to move from the name to the amount and again to save, Ctrl+N for income and Ctrl+Shift+N for an expense: a month's receipts take a few minutes. Amounts for an existing category are added together, so there is no arithmetic to do first.
💾 Portable and printable
Export writes every month to a single file you can keep, back up or import on another device. Print hides the buttons and gives a clean one-page snapshot of the month, which is where the name comes from.
Budgeting Basics the Tool Is Built Around
Three ideas do most of the work in personal budgeting, and the dashboard and the targets are designed to make each of them visible.
The savings rate
Savings rate is what is left of your income after expenses, as a percentage of income: earn 4,000 and spend 3,200 and the rate is 20 percent. It is a better yardstick than the amount saved because it scales with your income and shows whether spending is keeping pace with earnings. The tile shows it for the month with a plain verdict: 20 percent or more is excellent, 10 to 20 is good, anything above zero is room to improve.
Categories, not transactions
A budget you can read groups spending into a dozen categories rather than listing every coffee. The tool works at that level on purpose: an expense is a category and an amount, and adding to a category you already have combines the two. Fourteen quick categories cover housing, food, transport, utilities, health, insurance, entertainment, shopping, education, savings, debt, personal care, subscriptions and other; type anything else you need.
Targets and the 50/30/20 split
A common starting point is to put about half of income towards needs (housing, utilities, food, transport, insurance), up to 30 percent towards wants (entertainment, shopping, subscriptions) and at least 20 percent towards savings and debt. Budget targets turn that into category limits for the month, and the progress bars show at a glance which ones are under pressure before the month is out.
Months, Currencies, Files and Printing
Months. The month and year drop-downs in the toolbar switch the whole page: dashboard, lists, charts, comparison and targets all belong to the chosen month. The year list runs five years either side of the current one, and any saved year outside it is added to the list. The dashboard's "vs last month" notes and the three-month comparison read the neighbouring months, so a few months of entries make the tool more useful than one.
Currency. Settings offers eight symbols: dollar, euro, pound, yen, rupee, won, Canadian dollar and Australian dollar. It changes the symbol in front of every figure on the page and nothing else; amounts are never converted, so keep one budget in one currency. Amounts are shown with two decimals and thousands separators.
Export and import. Export writes one file named budget-snapshot-date.json that holds every month, the currency and the month you were looking at. Import reads such a file back and replaces what is in the browser with it, after checking that it really is a BudgetSnapshot file. A file saved by the earlier version of this tool imports as well. Export before you clear browsing data, switch browsers or lend the computer to somebody else.
Clearing. Settings has two buttons: Clear Current Month removes the entries and targets of the month on screen, Clear All Data removes every month. Both ask first; neither can be undone except by importing a file you exported earlier.
Printing. Print (or Ctrl+P) opens the browser's print window with a page that holds only the month's dashboard, lists, charts, comparison and targets, in two columns, without the toolbar, the buttons or these notes. Save it as a PDF for a monthly record or put it on the fridge.
What is remembered. Your entries, targets, currency and the selected month are kept in this browser's storage on this device and come back when you return. They are not shared with other browsers or devices and are not sent anywhere; the export file is the only way to move them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where are my figures stored?
In your browser's storage on this device, under the tool's own name. Nothing is sent to a server; there is no account and no sync. Use Export to keep a copy as a file and Import to bring it back or move it to another device.
How is the savings rate worked out?
Savings rate = (total income minus total expenses) divided by total income, as a percentage. 20 percent or more is shown as excellent, 10 to 20 as good, anything above zero as room to improve, and zero or less as no savings this month.
What happens when I add an expense to a category I already have?
The amount is added to that category's total for the month, so a week of grocery receipts becomes one Food line. Category names are matched without regard to case. To correct a figure, use the pencil on the line.
What does a budget target do?
It sets a spending limit for one category in the current month. The Budget Targets card shows a progress bar that turns amber at 75 percent and red at 100 percent, the expense line carries an over-budget note, and a warning appears the moment an expense pushes the category over its limit.
Can I track more than one month?
Yes. Pick any month and year in the toolbar; every month keeps its own income, expenses and budget targets. The dashboard compares the month with the one before it and the comparison card shows the last three months side by side.
Does it convert currencies?
No. The currency setting changes the symbol shown in front of every amount; the figures themselves are not converted. Keep one budget in one currency.
Is it free, and do I need an account?
It is free, with no registration and no limit on months or entries. Like every page on ZeroDataUpload, it is supported by advertising.