Hello, Budvo

The first public release. Budvo is a calm money planner that runs on your own hardware: it tells you what's safe to spend, plans every paycheck, and gets you out of debt on a date you can see. Your data never leaves your server.

Know what's safe to spend

• Safe to spend is one number that already sets aside your bills, debt payments and goals until the next payday.
• The paycheck plan splits each check across bills, vaults, debts and savings, and shows exactly where every dollar goes.
• The calendar shows each month's money in and out and whether it ends ahead or short. Try a what if (a purchase, an extra payment, a canceled bill) and watch the month, safe to spend and your debt-free date change.

Pay off debt, with dates

• Avalanche, snowball or your own order, with a payoff date for every card and loan and a countdown to debt free.
• Buy now, pay later plans from Affirm, Klarna, Zip and Afterpay, with payoff quotes and early payoff planning.
• Clear by a date works out what it takes to be done by the day you pick, and a refinance check tells you when a lower rate is worth it.
• Credit utilization per card and overall, with what it takes to get under 30%.

Decide with confidence

• Can I afford this? compares your plan with and without a purchase. It also handles rent and mortgages: move-in money, what you actually spend, and a rent to look for.
• Got extra money? shows where a windfall does the most good, and which card tells you which one to use for a purchase.
• Price in hours shows what something costs in hours of your work.

The jar

• A piggy bank for small wins: round-ups, no-spend challenges and bets on yourself fill it, and you smash it into a debt or a goal when you're ready.
• Spend match pledges count against safe to spend, so the jar never promises money you don't have.

Bills and subscriptions

• Recurring bills and paychecks post themselves, link to real transactions and remind you before they're due.
• The subscription radar spots what you pay for every month, and bill negotiation keeps track of the calls that lowered a bill.
• Calendar sync puts bills, paydays and payoff milestones in the calendar app you already use.

Make it yours

• The add-on marketplace has themes, small games and extras. Add-ons run in a sandbox, ask before they do anything, and never see more than you allow.
• Light and dark mode, privacy mode to hide amounts, and a household you can share with a partner.

Private and locked down

• The whole database is encrypted, not just a few columns. Its key is protected by your database password and your recovery key, and neither is ever stored in plain form.
• Setup takes about two minutes: the one-time code from docker logs budvo, a database password (type one or let Budvo make one), your recovery kit to save offline, and your account.
• After every restart the server starts locked until you unlock it with the database password or the recovery key. Changing the password is instant: it rewraps the key and never re-encrypts the data.
• Sign-in passwords are hashed with Argon2id and attempts are rate limited. Add two-factor with any authenticator app (with backup codes), plus passkeys.
• Locked out? budvo-server recover resets your sign-in from the server itself, but only with the database password or recovery key.
• Automatic encrypted backups before every update and database change, and one-click updates that show these notes first.