An honest envelope app.

Why werkBudget exists, and what it tries to be.

Most budgeting apps are spreadsheets in a wig. They track. They categorize. They produce monthly pie charts that nobody acts on. The problem isn't the math. It's that the math doesn't feel like anything. You don't feel the trade-off when you swipe a card, so you don't make one.

Envelope budgeting fixes that. You decide, up front, what each dollar is for. When you spend, you literally move money out of an envelope. When an envelope is empty, you stop. Or you raid another one and feel the choice. The discipline isn't rules. It's physics.

Where the apps got it wrong

Classic envelope apps demand you allocate every dollar to a specific envelope before you can spend. That's elegant in theory and exhausting in practice. Real life has surprise mechanic bills and impulse coffees and that one wedding you forgot about. Force people to account for every penny in advance, and they quit by week three.

So werkBudget bends the rule. Envelopes still hold the money. But the categories inside them have two modes: must-pay categories hold real allocated cash (rent, utilities, the subs), and just-track categories ride along to show up in reports without locking money down (coffee, takeout, weekend wandering). You ratchet up discipline where it matters, and leave the rest fluid.

What werkBudget is

• Envelope-first. Envelopes are the source of truth. Every transaction touches one.
• Two modes per category. Must-pay categories reserve cash. Just-track categories observe it. Switch either way any time.
• Credit cards, honest. By default, a swipe drains your envelope right away, so the cash is set aside before the statement lands. If you carry a balance, flip the card to Credit mode and it waits until you pay the bill.
• Sixty-day forecast. Every recurring paycheck, every scheduled bill, every goal contribution projected into a single line through your real balance. You see the low day before it hits.
• iPhone and Mac. Same data, same envelopes, on both devices. The Mac is where you sort the bank-import inbox fast; the phone is where you live.
• Local-first. Your data lives on your devices and in your iCloud private database. Nowhere else.
• No accounts, no analytics, no ads. No login screen. iCloud handles sync silently if you're signed in. Optional Face ID for shoulder-surfers.

What werkBudget isn't

• It isn't a bank connection. v1 imports a CSV from your bank (or a full export from YNAB) and sorts it fast with an on-device classifier. Bank-link APIs are noisy, expensive, and need servers that would break the local-first promise.
• It isn't an investing tool. Different problem, different app.
• It isn't a couples app yet. Shared household budgets are on the roadmap (selective CKShare, not iCloud Family), but v1 is just you.

Who built it

werkBudget is built by Caleb. One independent developer, no investors to answer to, no incentive to sell what you tell it. Opinionated about money, allergic to subscriptions that quietly surveil you. It's part of werkey.tech, a small family of tools that run on your own device and stay out of your way.

Get in

Want in? Join the beta or email werkbudget@werkey.tech. Bug reports and unhinged feature requests both welcome.