You can give your money a plan without handing over a bank login. A manual budget starts with what you know: the income you expect, the costs you want to allow for, and the spending you choose to record.

Create My Piggy in your browser. The web beta works in Safari and Chrome without an account or app download. The native iPhone app is separate and still coming soon.

Want to explore one possible price change first? Try your numbers in the coffee scenario calculator. That calculator is separate from your budget and does not automatically add spending to it.

Start with information, not a perfect spreadsheet

A useful starting point is to separate income, spending and bill timing. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's budgeting guide recommends recording income, tracking expenses and considering due dates before making a working budget. Its guidance was published June 5, 2019; the archive page shows a June 25, 2026 modification date. Read the CFPB guide.

The CFPB also provides separate income, spending, bill-calendar and cash-flow tools in its Your Money, Your Goals toolkit. These are general educational resources, not an endorsement of Piggy. Sources checked October 18, 2026.

You do not need to finish everything in one sitting. Gather your own pay information and bills, then start with a few realistic targets. Keep account numbers and other private details out of shared examples.

1. Choose your household and income frequency

Open Create My Piggy and choose solo or joint planning and one currency. Enter income amounts and choose the frequency that actually matches them. Read the income question carefully and use its requested basis consistently; money already withheld is not available to allocate again. An employee or self-employed label is not a tax calculation.

Piggy displays average monthly equivalents: weekly amounts use 52 ÷ 12; every-two-weeks amounts use 26 ÷ 12; twice-monthly amounts use 2. Every two weeks and twice monthly are different schedules.

For a deliberately hypothetical USD example, $600 weekly × 52 ÷ 12 = $2,600 per average month. Four weekly payments would be $2,400. The average does not tell you which bills can be paid before your next payday. Keep a separate calendar of actual paydays and due dates; this web beta is not a cash-flow calendar.

2. Give essentials and everyday choices realistic targets

Enter the rent or mortgage, groceries, utilities, transport and other targets that apply to you. Use amounts you want to plan for, with the right frequency—not a number chosen to make the chart look good. Skipped or unknown costs are still unknown, not proof that those costs are zero.

Suppose a fictional household plans $2,300 in total monthly allocations against the $2,600 average monthly income above, with no additional reserve in this example. The arithmetic leaves $300 unallocated in the plan. That is not $300 in the bank, confirmed savings or permission to spend it. Missing bills, irregular costs and actual timing may change the picture.

This is an illustration, not a recommended budget or a complete cost-of-living estimate. Include costs such as insurance renewals and repairs when they apply, and avoid counting money set aside and the eventual purchase twice in the same spending total.

3. Record spending deliberately, then review coverage

Add a manual spending entry when you do not have a receipt. Alternatively, use the separate receipt-to-Excel scanner, review its English OCR results, and choose to add the reviewed total to My Piggy. A reviewed receipt total is not bank verification.

Choose a category that represents what you are recording. A mixed grocery-and-household basket does not automatically become an item-by-item budget allocation. Check repeated entries before confirming another purchase with the same details.

The monthly graph compares targets with recorded spending in that calendar month and plan currency. If you have entered only two purchases, it is a two-purchase view—not your full monthly spending. No recorded bar means unknown coverage, and being below a target does not establish actual savings.

4. Stress-test one recurring price, separately

Here is a small, editable scenario—not a current cafe quote. Assume the same size and specification of coffee changes from USD $5.00 to $5.50, with one item per purchase, five purchases each week, repeated for 52 weeks. Both prices include the same tax and mandatory-fee treatment; assume no tips or discounts in either price.

The difference is $0.50 × 1 × 5 = $2.50 per week. Across 52 weeks it is $130 per year, or $10.83 per average month, rounded from $130 ÷ 12. Previous and scenario monthly costs are $108.33 and $119.17, each rounded independently; subtracting those displayed rounded totals gives $10.84. The calculator's $10.83 difference is calculated before rounding, so the one-cent display discrepancy is expected.

The coffee preset opens with those prices, quantity and frequency. Change them, choose your currency, and confirm equivalent units, package size and tax/fee/discount treatment. Currency labels do not convert money. If the routine runs fewer than 52 weeks, calculate the actual active weeks separately; the weekly preset annualizes to 52.

Try the editable coffee scenario. It does not read receipts, forecast prices, change your budget target or record purchases. You decide whether to revise your plan. A price rise is not a reason to skip necessities.

5. Decide whether to save or share

By default, budget and entries remain only in the open page; navigating away loses unsaved work. Optional browser saving keeps the plan and minimal spending entries on that browser and device. Anyone using the same browser profile may see them. This is not encrypted cloud storage, a receipt-photo Vault, bank synchronization or a restorable backup. Safari, Chrome and Home Screen sessions may keep separate data.

If you want a family check-in, create a budget and record spending first, then open Send Piggy PDF. Select the entries and preview exactly what will be in the report. Income and tax reserve are not automatically shared. An increase request is optional and chosen by you; it is not a calculated entitlement or a promise of approval. Nothing sends automatically. A PDF is a report snapshot, not a restorable budget backup.

Two questions before your first check-in

Can I budget without connecting a bank? Yes. In this web beta, you enter the plan and spending yourself or explicitly add a reviewed receipt total. The tradeoff is that missing transactions remain missing; Piggy cannot confirm complete spending or your account balance.

Is the amount remaining money I can safely spend today? Not necessarily. It is a comparison within the plan and recorded coverage, not an available bank balance or a forecast of upcoming payments. Check your own account and due-date calendar separately.

Your takeaway: a clear first draft beats a pretend complete picture

Start with income and a handful of realistic targets. Record what you know, keep unknowns visible, and return to adjust the plan. You can make progress without linking a bank—and without calling a partial picture complete.

Create My Piggy now. For the separate hypothetical price test, try your own coffee numbers. No app download or account is required; the native iPhone app is coming separately.

Sources and coverage

Evergreen educational guide, checked October 18, 2026. All example income, targets and coffee prices are fictional USD inputs, not personal records, merchant prices or recommended spending levels. The coffee comparison assumes identical specifications, quantity, frequency and tax/fee/discount treatment; no tips or discounts. Average months are annual totals divided by 12, not a payday calendar. Web features verified separately from the native iPhone app. No automatic tax advice, bank balance, cloud backup or savings claim.

A little clarity, not a guarantee

Projections are not recorded spending or confirmed savings. No national average or future price is inferred. The web calculator does not upload receipts, send family requests, or update the iPhone app.