A budget tells you what you plan to spend. Spend tracking tells you what you actually spent. Most budgeting tools treat these as separate workflows. BudgetMeadow connects them directly: you log your actual purchases against the exact budget item they belong to, and the running total updates instantly so you always know where you stand.
This guide covers everything you need to know about spend tracking in BudgetMeadow, including how to add entries, edit them, and how your actuals flow into your monthly history automatically.
Each budget item on your dashboard (Groceries, Gas, Electricity, and so on) can have individual spend entries logged against it during the month. A spend entry is simply a record of money you actually spent: an amount and an optional label to remind you what it was.
For example, if Groceries is budgeted at $420 per month, you might log:
BudgetMeadow adds those up ($305) and shows you how that compares to your $420 budget. If you go over, the total turns red so you can see it at a glance.
Spend tracking is a Premium feature. It's available on all Premium plans, including the 14-day free trial. Free plan users can still use Budget History to manually enter actuals at the end of each month.
On your dashboard, look for the + Add a spend button beneath any budget item. If you don't see it, make sure you're logged in as a Premium user and viewing the current month.
The entry appears immediately below the budget item, and the "Tracked this month" total updates to include it. You can add as many entries as you like against any budget item.
Changed your mind about a label or entered the wrong amount? Click directly on the label or amount of any existing entry. The field becomes editable. Make your change and press Enter to save, or Escape to cancel.
There's no separate edit mode and no save button to hunt for. Just click the text you want to change and type.
Each spend entry has a delete button (the trash icon) on the right. Click it to remove the entry. The running total updates immediately and the change is saved to your account.
Below your spend entries, BudgetMeadow shows a summary line: Tracked this month: $305 of $420 budgeted. This tells you at a glance how much of your budget you've used up.
If your total entries exceed the budgeted amount, the summary turns red and adds an "over budget" label. This is not a block - you can keep logging entries - it's just a visual signal so nothing sneaks past you.
If you haven't added any entries yet for a budget item, no total line is shown. The item sits quietly until you start logging.
BudgetMeadow's History page shows you a snapshot of every past month: what you budgeted and what you actually spent. When you use spend tracking, your actuals in History are calculated automatically from your entries. You don't need to go back and fill anything in.
The total of all your spend entries for a given budget item in a given month becomes that item's "actual" figure in History. If you tracked $305 against Groceries in May, History shows $305 in the Actual column for Groceries in May, alongside the $420 budget. The variance column does the math for you.
If you don't log any entries for an item in a given month, the actual in History shows as blank (not zero). This is intentional: blank means "not tracked" rather than "you spent nothing."
Spend entries are specific to the month they were logged in. When a new month begins, your dashboard starts fresh: no entries are shown, the running totals reset to zero, and last month's data is safely stored in History.
This happens automatically the first time you open your dashboard in the new month. You don't need to clear anything manually or reset your budget. Just start logging your new month's spending.
Your previous entries remain stored permanently and are visible in the History page, organized by month.
Spend tracking is available on Premium. Try it free for 14 days, no credit card required.
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