Set a budget that holds

A budget in Hitaji is a cap on a category for a month. Start with one — the category you already suspect is the problem.

Set it

1. Open Budgets and press Set Budget.
2. Choose the month and year.
3. Pick the category, and a subcategory if you want to be more precise.
4. Enter the amount.

Pace, not just totals

The useful part is not the bar filling up. Hitaji compares your spending against how far through the period you are and tells you whether you are over pace or under pace.

Being 60% through a budget is fine on the 20th and a problem on the 8th. Pace is what turns a budget from a scoreboard into a warning.

You can also skip days that should not count and set custom periods, for spending that does not fall evenly across a month.

Next month

Budgets do not roll forward on their own, and unspent money does not carry over. Use Copy Budgets to bring a previous month's set forward, then adjust — which is usually faster than starting again, and prompts you to notice what was unrealistic last time.

Budgets set on a parent category include what is spent in the categories beneath it, so you can cap "Food" without micromanaging every subcategory under it.