Core philosophy
CashCat is built around these core principles:- Every penny has a purpose — assign all income into categories with clear intention
- Money you don’t spend rolls forward — seamlessly carry unspent amounts into future months
- Stay flexible — edit past transactions and have your entire budget auto-cascade
- Full control — no ads, no tracking, no monthly fee
Groups and categories
Your budget is organized into groups and categories:- Groups are like envelopes (e.g., Food, Needs, Wants, Savings)
- Categories are specific jobs inside each envelope (e.g., Groceries, Dining, Housing, Bills)
Food
Groceries, Dining, Lunch & Drinks
Needs
Housing, Bills, Transport, Health & Care
Wants
Shopping, Entertainment, Subscriptions
Savings
Emergency, Travel, Investments
Budget templates
CashCat includes pre-built templates to help you get started quickly:- Student — optimized for student life with focus on food and essentials (25% food, 40% needs, 20% wants, 15% savings)
- Professional — balanced for working professionals with business expenses (15% food, 40% needs, 10% business, 15% wants, 20% savings)
- Family — designed for household budgets with family-specific categories (20% food, 45% needs, 15% wants, 20% savings)
- Debt Crusher — aggressive debt payoff focus (20% food, 45% needs, 5% wants, 30% savings/debt)
- Freelancer — includes tax savings and business expenses (25% business, 15% food, 35% needs, 10% wants, 15% savings)
Assigning money to categories
When you receive income, you assign it to categories. CashCat tracks:- Assigned — money you’ve allocated to each category this month
- Spent — actual spending from transactions
- Remaining — what’s left to spend (including rollover from previous months)
The transaction modal shows category remaining balance in real-time as you enter expenses, helping you stay on track.
Goal types
Each category can have one of three goal types:Spending
Fill to goal and spend throughout the month. Perfect for recurring expenses like groceries, rent, and bills. Unspent money automatically rolls over to next month.Emergency fund
Save to a target and keep it there. Ideal for building your emergency fund — money stays in the category once you reach your goal.Savings
Save a fixed amount each month. Great for travel funds, investments, or other savings goals where you want to contribute consistently.The Savings category in templates is a catch-all for leftover money — it’s not a monthly spending goal, it’s where the rest of your income lives. That’s zero-based budgeting.
Auto-distribution
CashCat can automatically distribute your monthly income across categories:- Enter your estimated monthly income or expenses
- Click Autofill to distribute based on template ratios
- Adjust individual category goals as needed
- Lock income to prevent accidental changes
Historical insights
When you import bank transactions, CashCat calculates:- Average monthly income — based on income transactions over time
- Average monthly spend — based on payment transactions over time
- Category-specific averages — real spending patterns for each category (last 3 months)
Rollover calculation
Unspent budget automatically rolls forward month-to-month. CashCat calculates rollover by:- Looking back up to 12 months for each category
- For each past month:
rollover = assigned - spent - Accumulating the difference forward to the current month
assigned + rollover - spent
Managing your budget
Access budget management from the main navigation:- Add groups — create new organizational buckets
- Add categories — create spending categories within groups
- Set goals — define monthly targets with goal types
- Edit categories — rename, change goals, or update goal types
- Delete categories — remove unused categories (with confirmation)