Your first budget in ten minutes

Most people never start a budget because starting sounds like a weekend of spreadsheets. It is not. Here is the whole thing, start to finish, with a cup of tea going cold beside you.

Before you begin

You need three things: your phone, a rough idea of what is in your accounts right now, and your last payslip or a sense of what comes in each month. That is it. You do not need bank statements, and you never need to hand over a bank login - inani money does not connect to your bank, on purpose.

Minute one: create your account

Go to app.inanimoney.com and create a free account. There is no card to enter and no trial that runs out. If you would rather look around first without an account, you can - but an account means your budget follows you to your laptop, and it is backed up if your phone goes missing.

Minutes two to four: tell it what you have

Add each place your money lives: the cash in your pocket, your bank account, your mobile money wallet. If you have a loan or a credit card, add that too - inani money knows the difference between money you owe and money you can spend, so your car loan will never be mistaken for savings.

If you happen to use more than one currency, switch the others on too. If you do not, skip this and never think about it again.

Minutes five to seven: write down what is already spoken for

This is the step that makes the biggest difference, and the one most budgets skip. Add the bills you know are coming: rent, school fees on the real term dates, the insurance renewal, the subscriptions you pay every month. Put in the date and the amount, once.

From now on inani money will quietly set aside a little each month toward each of them, so the full amount is waiting when the day comes. Term fees stop being a surprise. That alone is worth the ten minutes.

Minutes eight to ten: give every bit of your money a job

Now look at the money you have and decide what it is for. Rent. Food. Transport. Airtime. A bit for the unexpected. A bit for you. inani money calls these envelopes, because that is how our grandparents did it - and it still works.

You do not have to get this right the first time. If food runs low in week three, you move some money from another envelope and the app writes down why. Nothing is locked, nothing is hidden, nothing lectures you.

That’s it. Now the easy part

From tomorrow, when you spend, take five seconds to note it. Each envelope shows what is left, that day, not at the end of the month when it is too late to change anything.

Give it one full month. By the second payday you will know something most people never do: exactly where the money went, and exactly what next month needs to look like.

Create your free account - it works on your phone, with or without data, and everything you enter is yours to download at any time.