Origin Is the Only Budgeting Tool You’ll Ever Need

As an all-in-one personal finance app, we know the absolutely crucial importance of creating a realistic budget. Everything else — meeting savings goals, paying for big life decisions, planning for retirement — stems from a budget that works for your everyday life, and is easy to tweak as situations and priorities change. But we also know that most people have a hard time sticking to one, because traditional budgeting tools are cumbersome to set up, annoying to maintain, and often feel disconnected from how you actually spend. And when budgets feel unrealistic and unachievable, it’s easy to become discouraged on all things personal finance, even tracking spending.

To solve that problem, Origin has reimagined budgeting by making it radically easier to get started — and even easier to stick with: Our new AI budget builder automatically creates a personalized budget based on how you actually spend. It's fast, flexible, and gives you the confidence to take control of your money — without the mental load of doing it all yourself.

We’ve got a full suite of additional budget tools that help keep you on track, or let you drill down into the nitty-gritty of your spending. Read on for the full list: 

How to create a budget 

• Our AI budget builder is the hero here. All you have to do is connect it to your accounts, and it will automatically create a realistic, personalized budget for you that considers your actual spending patterns, meaning it’s an achievable guidepost that helps you stay on track. 

• If you prefer to get into the minutiae of your monthly transactions and manually create your own budget, you can go right ahead. 

• You can also create unique monthly budgets, because we know some months cost more than others. (The holidays, summer vacation, maybe you’re a “birthday month” person … )

How to track your budget 

Once you’ve built your budget, all you have to do is follow it … but we know that’s easier said than done. So we’ve got a handful of features that help you keep an eye on your monthly progress, including: 

• An iOS widget that gives you an at-a-glance update on how your spending is pacing this month, compares it to the previous month, and shows how it’s tracking against your budget. 

• The spending tab on your homepage, which gives you a more-detailed look at your recent transactions, and how they’re affecting your monthly goals. 

• The favorites widgets on your Origin dashboard, which allow you to choose what appears on your membership homepage — like our budget tracking widget. 

How to view your budget in different ways

• When you build a budget with Origin, you can customize your budget categories, choosing what makes the most sense to you. You can also group those categories in broader buckets, and then see how you’re spending vis-a-vis those category groups.

• Origin defaults to a monthly budget view, but you can also see how your budget looks on a quarterly or annual view.

• See all your recurring transactions in one place, from subscriptions to bills, in an easy-to-digest calendar view.

How to customize your budget

• You can link your Origin account with your partner’s and create a joint household budget. (If your partner isn’t already an Origin member, you can add them to your account for free!)

• Customize your spending categories — and then group those spending categories under broader category groups. These let you see how you’re spending in all your budget categories (things like “food,” “personal care,” and “entertainment”).

• Edit your budget manually. On the spending tab, navigate to “Breakdown & Budget.” Click the “Budget” tab, then click “Edit Budget.” 

Ready to get started with your own budget?

Join Origin today.(opens in new window)