Money Timeline

What Money Timeline answers

Money Timeline is a read-only cash forecast intended to answer: What will my available cash likely look like between now and my next paycheck?It starts with cash you have now, applies expected events in date order, and shows the projected amount after each event.

What the forecast includes

Starting cash

Today’s balances in the selected Whole Plan forecast accounts. Defaults are active checking and cash; Manage Accounts → In forecast can customize the eligible set.

Expected income

Scheduled paycheck income and applicable manual Expected Income through the next paycheck.

Bills

Upcoming bill obligations, reduced by payments already recorded for the current occurrence.

Credit-card payments

Upcoming credit-card payment obligations where they apply to the forecast.

Scheduled cash activity

Known future cash transactions dated inside the forecast period. The same one-off cash also appears on the By Paycheck cash timeline for that period. A Don’t include this period skip from By Paycheck is omitted from the running balance here too.

Everyday spending

An optional estimate for remaining flexible cash spending in the current paycheck period.

Estimated everyday spending

Everyday spending estimates cover flexible categories planned for each paycheck, such as groceries or dining. For each eligible category, the forecast begins with the current paycheck-period plan. When at least two usable prior paycheck windows exist, it also considers the typical amount observed in recent completed windows. It uses the higher of planned and typical, then subtracts cash spending already completed and separately scheduled.

Planned versus typical

Historical spending can make the forecast more realistic, but it does not rewrite your category plan. If there is not enough history, the estimate relies on the current plan alone.

Paycheck-specific $0 overrides

An explicit $0 override for a category on this paycheck is respected as an intentional instruction and is not replaced by historical spending.

Cash spending only

Credit-card purchases are not treated as everyday cash spending in this estimate. Their cash effect occurs through applicable credit-card payment obligations instead.

Use Include estimated everyday spending to include or exclude the estimate. It is a forecast event, not a fake transaction, and the toggle does not change your budget data.

Reading the timeline

Each row shows an expected event and projected cash after it. The lowest projected point highlights where cash may be tightest before payday. Ending projected cash is the estimate after all included events through the next paycheck.

Account Cash and By Paycheck

Category Available is money reserved for a category and backed by accounts. Account Cash is where money physically exists and the projected balance of that account. A well-funded category does not guarantee that the checking account used for a payment has enough cash on the due date.

By Paycheck organizes deterministic obligations, income, scheduled activity, and flexible-spending forecast episodes into paycheck periods. Flexible categories use shared cadence and amount modeling so Spending Behavior, By Paycheck, Money Timeline, Account Cash, and IZ Assist workflows do not intentionally rely on contradictory timing models.

Can I Do This?

The read-only Can I Do This? forecast lets you test a possible purchase or expense against the same timeline. It shows how the extra outflow could affect the lowest and ending cash without recording it or changing assignments.