Pocket Runway Guides
Everything we have written about budgeting from one paycheck to the next: how to work out what is safe to spend, which check should carry which bill, and how the arithmetic changes when your income does not arrive on a monthly schedule.
All of it is free to read, no account required. Start wherever your question is.
Calculate
Five calculators, all free, all running entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere.
- Daily spending allowance calculator. Enter your balance, payday, and committed money; get today's number.
- Paycheck allocation calculator. Enter your paydays and bills to see which paycheck covers each one, and which pay period is overloaded.
- Sinking fund calculator. Work out exactly what a future expense costs per paycheck, counting only the paychecks that arrive in time.
- Three-paycheck month calculator. Find the months your own schedule pays you three times, and decide what the extra check should do.
- Irregular income budget calculator. Build a plan from the money that actually arrived, with a tax reserve you set yourself.
Bills, rent, and timing
- How much can I spend before payday?. The formula behind a safe-to-spend number, why your checking balance is not it, and a worked pay period.
- Which paycheck should cover rent?. Assign rent to the last check before the due date, and what to do when that check cannot carry it alone.
- Budgeting when payday falls after rent. The gap that repeats every month: how to close it permanently, and how to handle the shortfall meanwhile.
Plan by income type
- Biweekly and semi-monthly pay. Twenty-six paychecks do not divide into twelve months, and the two schedules people treat as the same thing are not.
- Hourly and shift work pay. Overtime one week, a cut shift the next, and a budget that follows the check you actually got.
- Irregular income. Why averaging your income does not fix a variable-income budget, and what to do instead.
- Gig, 1099, and freelance income. No steady check and nobody withholding your taxes. Reserving for both as you get paid.
- Commission-based income. Planning against confirmed payouts when a check can be triple last month's or a third of it.
Move from another system
- Move from YNAB to Pocket Runway. Exporting your plan, what comes across, what is deliberately not created, and what changes when budgeting stops being category-first.
- Pocket Runway vs. YNAB. Zero-based category budgeting against one daily number, and which question each one answers.
- Pocket Runway vs. spreadsheet budgeting. Where a DIY spreadsheet holds up, and where it goes stale.
- Pocket Runway vs. Ritual Runway. Two paycheck-first apps compared on verifiable ground: plans, pricing, platforms, and features.
- Best budgeting app for biweekly pay. What biweekly pay demands from software, and a ten-minute checklist for evaluating any app against it.
Understand Pocket Runway
- How safe to spend is calculated. The full method: pay-period boundaries, what is reserved, refunds, the buffer, Runway Reset, and two worked examples.
- Security and privacy. What is stored, how sign-in and connected accounts work, what analytics never sees, and how to delete your account.
- About Pocket Runway. Why it exists and what pay-period budgeting is.
- Support and FAQ. Plans, the daily allowance, Runway Reset, importing transactions, privacy, and account help.
These guides are general educational information about cash-flow budgeting, not financial, tax, or legal advice. Dollar figures in them are illustrative examples.
Rather have the app do the arithmetic? Get started with Pocket Runway → It plans one pay period at a time, reserving only what is due before your next check.