Envelope Budgeting Example — beancount.io

A Beancount ledger demonstrating envelope (zero-based) budgeting: giving every dollar a job before it is spent, and seeing immediately when a category runs dry.

The method rests on one idea — envelopes are equity, not assets. The money is already in the bank; budgeting only decides what it is promised to. So an allocation moves value between equity subaccounts and never touches Assets, which is why the overlay can never disturb your bank reconciliation.

The ledger also declares matching native custom "budget" targets for each expense account. The equity postings provide rollover envelope balances; the custom directives power beancount.io's Budget report and its budget-versus-actual charts. They are complementary views of the same monthly plan.

Quick Start

bash

make install   # Install beancount + fava via uv
make check     # Verify the ledger has zero errors
make serve     # Open Fava at http://localhost:4739

File Guide

File	What it demonstrates
`main.bean`	Entry point — options and `include` directives
`accounts.bean`	Commodity definitions, real accounts, and the envelope tree
`budgets.bean`	Native monthly targets used by the beancount.io Budget report
`transactions/opening.bean`	Starting balances, and what "to be budgeted" means
`transactions/funding.bean`	Assigning income to envelopes — kept separate from income arriving
`transactions/spending.bean`	The four-posting purchase: two for the money, two for the plan
`transactions/overspending.bean`	An envelope going negative, and covering it deliberately
`transactions/sinking-funds.bean`	Funding an irregular bill monthly instead of being surprised by it
`transactions/reset.bean`	Retiring a category, and reconciling against the bank

The one thing to copy

Spending is four postings, readable as two independent pairs:

beancount

2026-01-08 * "Whole Foods" "Weekly shop"
  Assets:Bank:Checking       -128.44 USD   ; what your bank sees
  Expenses:Groceries          128.44 USD
  Equity:Budget:Groceries    -128.44 USD   ; what your budget sees
  Equity:Budget:Unallocated   128.44 USD

Each pair balances on its own, so the budget overlay is always safe to add, remove, or ignore.

budgeting-envelopes

Finanzlage

Geldbewegung

Letzte Aktivitäten

Erträge vs. Aufwendungen

Bilanz

Cashflow

Envelope Budgeting Example — beancount.io

Quick Start

File Guide

The one thing to copy