Budget

Support zero-based, or the envelope method of budgeting

Inspired by the most recent post on the LM blog, on "how to prepare financially for a layoff," it would be nice to be able to---without changing the budget I currently have active---create a second parallel budget based on different assumptions, so that (for example) if I were to be laid off I could immediately switch to a budget I'd already prepared for that contingency. This feature could also be used to plan for an expected wage increase without starting to implement that plan until the increased wages begin.

From the budget page, I want to be able to click on the current transaction total for a category, to be taken to the transactions view, with a filter set for the relevant budget period, and category. Mint has this feature, and it is super useful. When you are reviewing how you are doing on your budget, you notice a total that seems odd ("How did I spend so much on Grocery this month?!"), click on it, and go to the list of transactions. ("Oh the Microwave I bought at Target got lumped into my grocery bill, I will split it"). You currently have clicking on the total set the budget for the category, so will have to do some rework there. Alternatively, you could make clicking on the Category title have this function.

There are some budgets that when full I no longer want to put money in them. For instance the vet budet, once I have $1200 in the vet budget, I don't want to add more to it unless it dips below 1200 and then go back to adding the default amount each budget. Any extra money return to the budget to be re-allocated.

Zero-based budgeting is not necessarily the same as envelope budgeting. Envelope budgeting is cash-based budgeting, meaning you budget based off of actual money/cash, not income (don't spend until you have it). The current budgeting implementation only allowes one to budget "current income" but there is no way to budget current account balance or savings. For example, if one starts using Lunch Money with 50k in savings and a monthly income of 5k (paid end of month), then by end of January (for example) one can "budget" the 5k, which is cool, but what about the 50k in savings one has? This money was already budgeted / saved for particular purposes (e.g vacations, private school, house deposit, etc) and it's a shame that LM does not allow me to budget ALL the money I have in my accounts but only current income.

Currently, setting a custom budget that repeats every 2 weeks or every 15 days doesn't work for income received on set days twice a month (eg. on the 15th and 31st), because not all months have the same number of days. This means that instead of consistent periods from 31st-14th and 15th-30th, you end up with 31st -13th, 14th-27th, 28th-10th, and so on. The semi-monthly (or twice a month) option would take different month lengths into consideration and repeat consistently based on two anchor days (eg. new budget every 15th and 31st). 31st would automatically be the 30th or 28th instead depending on the month.

Allow an option to auto-set the budget indefinitely to a specific value. Ability to apply a set budget for multiple months at once.

In the monthly budget page (/budget/yyyy/mm), I would like to collapse and expand category groups similar to functionality on the Query Tool (/analyze) page, so that I can easily assign budget totals at the category group level and conserve screen real estate for categories with numerous children. Bonus if category groups can be collapsed by default and rollup-sums enabled.

This should automatically set the "rollover management" and "one-click budgeting" options for all categories in the group (maybe prompting if some have already been set, and would be overwritten). For example, I have a Category Group for "loans", and I want all of them to have the same rollover and on-click budgeting settings