Long-term planning with envelope budgets?

Envelope budgets are excellent for being real, and keeping you honest in the here-and-now.

However, the smaller your savings accounts are, the harder it is to project forward and create a budget that makes sense considering your longest term goals. For example, if your income is expected to change in three months, how do you budget today?

I have seen many people suggest that budgeting truly "clicked" for them when they made an annual budget. They took their prospective income for the entire year, and placed that virtual money into envelopes. Then they applied this to their current month. However, those who are most successful seem to keep updating the annual budget with current spending so it can adjust.

I'd love to apply this annual budgeting concept for how I use Actual Budget, though I'm a little confused how to approach this, it's like a hybrid of envelope and tracking budgets.

Posted Nov 28, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

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