Your money,
on your server.

Know what's safe to spend until payday, give every dollar of your paycheck a job, and get out of debt faster. Free, on hardware you own, in a database only you can unlock.

Install Budvo How self-hosting works

Free to run · One Docker container · Fully encrypted

money.home.arpa

Budvo

Today

Accounts

Plan

Calendar

Settings

Good morning, Sam

Tuesday, September 29

Payday Friday

Safe to spend until payday

$412.60

3 days left, about $138 a dayFri, Oct 2

Next 14 days

Oct 1Rent−$950.00
Oct 2Paycheck+$2,200.00
Oct 8Affirm, 4 of 4−$89.60
Oct 10Discover min.−$45.00

Paycheck plan · Sep 18

$2,200.00 · $0.00 left

RentDue Oct 1Bills$950.00
Car loan minimumPaid Sep 22Bills$312.00
Affirm, 3 of 4Paid Sep 24BNPL$89.60
Apartment fundSoFi Vault, on track for Mar 1Goal$412.00
Spend matchMcDonald's, to DiscoverMatch$37.40
Discover cardAvalanche: 27.24% APRDebt$399.00

How self-hosting works

Three steps, then it's yours.

No account with us, no cloud in the middle. Budvo is one container that keeps your data and serves the dashboard.

01
Run the container
One Docker container on your NAS, Mac mini, home server or Raspberry Pi.
$ docker compose up -d
02
Open the dashboard and lock it down
Enter the setup code from the logs, choose a database password and save your recovery kit.
$ docker logs budvo
03
Add your money
Accounts and vaults, cards, loans, BNPL plans, bills and your pay schedule. Budvo does the math.
open http://your-server:8484

Install guide Reach it from anywhere

What it does

Know where you stand.
Know what to do next.

Budvo answers one question first: given your pay, your bills, your debts and your BNPL plans, are you on track, and what do you need to do to get there?

Safe to spend

One number you can trust until payday.

Your balance minus everything that's already spoken for. Not a budget category, not a guess: what you can actually spend without touching rent money.

Counts every bill, installment and set-aside before your next paycheck
Keeps a buffer you choose
Updates the moment anything changes

Paycheck plan

Every dollar of every paycheck gets a job.

Each paycheck becomes a checklist that adds up to the cent, with nothing unassigned. Tick lines off as you move the money, and the plan reflows when life changes.

Bills and minimums first, then your buffer and emergency fund
Exactly what each goal needs to finish on time
Everything left goes to the debt that costs you most

Debt payoff

The fastest way out, with the math shown.

Credit cards, student loans, auto and personal loans, each with its own rate. Budvo tells you where your next dollar saves the most, and what each debt costs you per day. Prefer snowball? Switch, and see what it costs in dollars.

Avalanche by default: highest APR first, which saves the most
Understands promo APRs, daily interest and minimum-only loans
A debt-free countdown and the interest you save

Spend match

Spend $10 at McDonald's, send $10 to debt.

Pick a merchant or category and a match rate. Each matched purchase drops into the jar until you smash it into your debt, and the running totals make it oddly satisfying.

Buy now, pay later

Every installment, in one place.

Affirm, Klarna, Zip, Afterpay, Sezzle, PayPal Pay in 4 and more. Each installment lands in your plan and calendar, and moving one payment is one edit.

Goals

$10,000 to move out by March.

Set a target and a date. Budvo works out what to set aside from each paycheck, and tells you early if you're falling short, with real options to fix it.

Calendar and reminders

Paydays, bills and installments, on your calendar.

A month view of everything coming and, on past days, what you spent. Reminders before things are due, and calendar feeds for Google Calendar or your desktop.

Checking, savings and SoFi Vaults
Credit cards and promo APRs
Student, auto and personal loans
Affirm, Klarna, Zip, Afterpay
Subscription radar for recurring charges
A script for lowering a bill
Credit utilization and which card to use
Prices in hours of work
Households and hosting friends

Motivation that pays down debt

Small wins, real payments.
Even a little fun.

Paying off debt is a long game. Budvo collects the small stuff in one place and turns it into real payments, without touching money you need.

The jar

A piggy bank you smash into your debt.

Nothing moves until you smash it. Pick a smash day each week or month, or smash whenever you like, and keep the streak going. Money in the jar already counts as spoken for, so safe to spend stays honest.

Spend match, round-ups and your own pledges all drop in
Smash it into the debt your plan pays first, or into savings and investing once you're debt free
Never dips below your safety net or what's due before payday

Ways to fill the jar

Round-ups, no-spend days and bets on yourself.

Round each purchase up to the next dollar. Skip spending for a weekend or a week and each clean day drops what you didn't spend in the jar, with a streak to protect. Or make a bet: pay $500 toward a card by the end of the month, or the stake goes in the jar.

Add-ons and games

Games that run on real progress.

A pixel zoo that grows as debts are paid off, boss fights where payments deal damage, scratch-offs, snake, a weekly jackpot you can't lose money on, and sports picks with friends on other Budvo servers. Get them from the marketplace, or sideload your own with the SDK.

Fair play

No real-money gambling: prizes are for fun, and stakes only go to your own jar
Odds are shown plainly
Budvo, not the add-on, asks before a pledge goes in, within a daily limit you set
Add-ons never move money and never see your transactions

Browse the marketplace Build an add-on

Plan ahead

Try it before you do it.
See what changes.

Big decisions are easier with the numbers in front of you. Budvo runs them against your real pay, bills and debts.

What if

Try a payment on your calendar first.

Thinking about a gym, a new phone plan or paying off a card early? Lay it over the calendar and see exactly what it does to the month. If you like it, make it real in one tap.

Add a new bill or income, pay a debt off on a day, or stop a bill
See safe to spend, your lowest point and the month's in, out and left over
Watch the debt-free date move, before anything is saved

Got extra money?

Where $500 does the most good.

Sold something, got a refund or a bonus? Budvo compares freeing up monthly payments, saving the most interest and keeping a cushion, recommends one and applies it in one tap. Before a big purchase, it also tells you which card keeps you under 30% used.

Can I afford this?

Rent that fits, before you sign.

Checks a new place against what you actually spend, the landlord's income rule and the move-in money. Save places to compare them side by side, and pick a move date to see which debts to clear first so more of your pay is free.

Privacy and security

Your server. Your data.

Financial data is the most personal data there is. Budvo keeps it on your hardware, encrypts all of it, and never sends it to us.

Read the security model

Your server, your data
Everything lives on hardware you own. There's no Budvo cloud and no account with us.
Encrypted, all of it
The whole database is encrypted with a 256-bit key, not just a few columns. Backups stay encrypted too.
Password and recovery key
The key is wrapped by your database password and by a recovery key only you hold. Lose neither.
Locked after a restart
After a reboot the server can't read its own data until you unlock it. A stolen NAS is just ciphertext.
Two-factor sign-in
Argon2id passwords, rate limits and authenticator codes today. Passkeys and Face ID with the app.
No tracking
No analytics, no ads, no telemetry. This site doesn't track you either.

Honest about hosting. You can host friends on your server in their own households. Before they join, Budvo tells them that whoever runs the server could technically see their data. Sync connectors use your own provider keys; Budvo never holds them.

Coming soon

Budvo for iPhone.

A native app for iOS 26 that pairs with your server by scanning a code in the dashboard. Safe to spend at a glance, home screen widgets, bills in Apple Calendar and reminders encrypted end to end.

Coming soon foriPhone, iOS 26

The web dashboard works great on your phone today.

Questions

Good to know.

Anything else? The self-hosting guide goes deeper.

What does self-hosted mean here?

Budvo runs as one Docker container on a machine you own, like a NAS, a Mac mini, a home server or a Raspberry Pi. That machine stores your data and serves the dashboard you open in a browser. There's no Budvo cloud account and nothing to sign up for.

Does NullDaily see my financial data?

No. Your accounts, balances, transactions and plans live only in the encrypted database on your server. This website publishes docs and releases. The optional marketplace only serves add-on and connector packages, leagues with friends share just a display name and picks, and the future push relay only ever sees encrypted notifications it can't read.

What hardware do I need?

Anything that runs Docker and stays on: Synology, QNAP, Unraid or TrueNAS, a Mac mini, an old PC, or a Raspberry Pi 4 or newer. Budvo is light, and your data takes megabytes, not gigabytes.

What happens if I forget my database password?

Unlock with your recovery key instead, then set a new password. Budvo shows the recovery key once during setup and lets you download it as a recovery kit. If you lose both, nobody can decrypt your data, including us, so keep the kit somewhere safe.

Can I use it away from home?

Yes. The docs walk you through Cloudflare Tunnel, which gives your server a real HTTPS address without opening a port, and Tailscale, which keeps it private to your own devices.

Does it connect to my bank?

You can add everything by hand, with quick entry and CSV import. Automatic syncing comes through optional connectors from the marketplace. For Plaid you bring your own keys, so your bank data flows between your server and Plaid, never through us.

Can my partner or a friend use it too?

Yes. Share a household with a partner, or host friends in their own separate households. Before a friend joins, Budvo tells them plainly that whoever runs the server could technically see their data.

Is it really free?

Yes. The server, the dashboard, the planner, the jar and everything on this page are free to run on your own hardware. Apps like Monarch and Rocket Money's paid plan charge a subscription, often to people who are paying down debt and can least spare it. Budvo doesn't. Some optional extras cost us money to operate, like the push relay for iPhone notifications, and may be paid later. Paid add-ons stay hidden while you're in debt mode, and your data is never the product.

Do the games use real money?

No real-money gambling, ever. Add-on games run on your real progress, like debts paid off and no-spend days, and their prizes are for fun. When a game offers a pledge, the money goes into your own jar and later into your own debt or savings. Budvo asks you before a pledge goes in, odds are shown plainly, and add-ons never move money or see your transactions.

Is this financial advice?

No. Budvo's numbers are estimates based on what you enter or sync, and it shows its math so you can check it. It's a planning tool, not a financial advisor.

Is it ready?

Yes. Budvo 0.4.0 is the first public release, with everything on this page. It's new and moving quickly: every release is listed on the releases page, and your server shows what changed after each update, with one-click updates from its settings. The iPhone app is coming soon.