Guided Wiggle Budget demo: build a month step by step

A month built one decision at a time

The guided demo starts where you would: with the balance you actually have. It anchors at $6,200 in checking, typed in rather than synced, because there is no bank connection to sync from.

From there it adds the things that make a balance misleading. Payday of $4,200 arrives on the 9th. The card payment of $1,250 leaves on the 2nd. Same month, same money, and the order is the entire problem.

The number the walkthrough is built around

Once rent, an auto-invest, the car, groceries and a weekend trip are all on the timeline, the projected balance dips to roughly $730 before payday lands.

That is the point of the whole exercise. The bank says $6,200. The genuinely free figure, with every commitment and the investing already covered, is around $730. One of those numbers is safe to make a decision against and the other is not.

Cleared, committed, and uncertain are three different things

The walkthrough then shows the states an entry moves through, because they answer different questions. Marking something processed records that the money has genuinely left the account, which is what stops a projection drifting from reality while a payment is pending.

Disabling an entry tests a possibility without deleting it, so you can ask what happens if the trip does not go ahead and put it straight back. Marking it done closes the loop and takes it out of the forecast entirely.

Then it hands the method over

The last step resets to today so the method is yours rather than the sample data’s: anchor to a real balance, place what you know is coming, and read the lowest point rather than the highest.

Every figure in the walkthrough is computed by the same engine the real app uses. Nothing is illustrated or approximated for the demo.

Questions about the walkthrough

How long does the guided demo take?

A few minutes. It is a short sequence of steps, each one adding a piece to the same month, and you can leave at any point.

What does "processed" mean, and how is it different from "done"?

Processed means the money has genuinely left or entered your account, so the balance you see matches what your bank shows. Done means the entry is finished with and no longer belongs in the forecast. An entry can be processed but not done, which is exactly the state a pending payment sits in.

Why type in a balance instead of linking a bank?

Linking an account gives a third party standing read access to every transaction you make. Typing one number takes a few seconds, keeps that access from existing, and means falling behind costs you a minute rather than an evening of re-categorising.

Are the numbers in the walkthrough real calculations?

Yes. The projection, the lowest point, and the effect of every state change are produced by the same engine that runs the real app. Only the data is sample data.