Planning a month in Monthly comes down to five short steps: enter your paycheck, list your fixed expenses, set a weekend reserve, log any investments, and check the real free money figure the app calculates from those four inputs. None of it requires linking a bank account. The time it takes depends on how many fixed expenses you have, but for most people, once the first month is set up, updating it each pay period genuinely takes a few minutes.
The five minutes referenced in the title describes the ongoing habit, not the very first time you use the app. Setting up a month for the first time means entering every fixed expense you have from scratch, which realistically takes longer than five minutes depending on how many recurring bills and subscriptions you’re tracking. What gets fast is every month after that, once the structure already exists and most of what you’re doing is confirming figures rather than building the list from nothing.
The 5 steps
- Enter your expected paycheck for the month
- List each fixed expense by name and amount
- Set aside a weekend reserve
- Log any investments you're contributing to
- Check your real free money before you start spending
1. Enter your paycheck
Open Monthly and start with your income for the month. If you’re paid a predictable salary, this step is a single number. If your income varies (freelance work, tips, a second job), enter your best current estimate rather than an average from a different month; you can always come back and adjust it as actual payments arrive.
This step matters more than it looks like it should, because everything else in the plan is subtracted from it. An outdated or overly optimistic paycheck figure will make every number downstream look more comfortable than it actually is, so it’s worth the extra ten seconds to get it right before moving on.
2. List your fixed expenses
Next, add your fixed expenses one by one: rent or mortgage, utilities, a phone bill, card payments, subscriptions, insurance, anything that recurs and that you already know the amount of. The first time through, this is the step that takes the most time, since you’re building the list from scratch. Every month after that, most of the work is just confirming the same items are still accurate.
Give each expense a name you’ll recognize later, not a vague category. “Electric bill” is more useful six months from now than “utilities” once you have several items in the same category. If an amount changed since last month, say a rate increase or a new subscription, update it here rather than leaving the old figure in place.
Don’t try to make this list perfect on the first pass. It’s far more useful to enter the ten fixed expenses you can think of right now and add a missing one next week than to delay starting until you’ve reconstructed every bill from old statements. The list improves naturally over the first couple of months as you notice what’s missing, and an incomplete-but-started list is more useful than a complete one you never got around to entering.
| Fixed expense | Example amount |
|---|---|
| Rent | $1,350 |
| Electricity | $95 |
| Phone | $60 |
| Streaming subscriptions | $35 |
| Card payment | $200 |
3. Set your weekend reserve
A weekend reserve is money you decide in advance to set aside for the discretionary spending that isn’t a bill but also isn’t optional every week: going out, a delivery order, gas for a weekend trip. Setting this number deliberately, instead of discovering it by however much is left in your account on a Friday, is one of the more useful habits Monthly is built around.
There’s no universal right number here; it depends entirely on your income and your own priorities. The point of the step is simply to decide the figure on purpose, once, rather than letting it happen by default every week.
If you’re not sure where to start, look back at what you actually spent on weekends over the past month or two and use that as a rough starting point, adjusting it up or down based on what felt comfortable. You can always change the reserve amount later. The first number doesn’t need to be exact, it just needs to exist so you’re planning around it deliberately instead of guessing after the fact.
4. Log your investments
If you’re contributing to an investment or a savings goal separate from your regular fixed expenses, log that amount as well. This keeps it distinct from money that’s just sitting available to spend, so it isn’t accidentally counted as part of your real free money for the month.
This step is optional if you’re not currently investing anything. You can skip it entirely and come back to it once you are. The goal is simply that, when you are setting money aside for the future, the app treats it as spoken for rather than lumping it in with discretionary spending.
This matters more than it might seem for anyone contributing irregularly rather than through an automatic payroll deduction. If you occasionally move money into a brokerage account by hand, logging that contribution here is what keeps it from silently counting as spendable free money the next time you check the app.
5. Check your real free money
With your paycheck, fixed expenses, reserve and investments entered, Monthly shows your real free money: what’s left once every one of those commitments is accounted for. This is the number worth checking before making a spending decision, instead of your account balance, which still includes money that’s already earmarked for something else.
Using the example figures above, a $3,200 paycheck minus $1,740 in fixed expenses minus a $250 weekend reserve minus $200 in investments leaves $1,010 in real free money. That figure updates automatically the moment you change any input, so if a bill increases or your paycheck shifts, you’ll see the new number immediately instead of having to redo the math yourself.
Treat this number as a ceiling for the month, not a target to reach. Spending exactly $1,010 isn’t the goal. The number is useful precisely because it tells you the most you can spend without touching money that’s already committed elsewhere. Leaving some of it unspent by the end of the period is a normal, healthy outcome, not a sign the plan needs adjusting.
Set a recurring reminder for payday. Opening Monthly right when income arrives keeps the 5-minute update a habit instead of a catch-up task three weeks later.
Checking this number before, rather than after, a spending decision is really the entire point of the five-minute habit. It’s the difference between wondering whether you can afford something and knowing, from a figure that already accounts for every commitment, whether you actually can.
Keeping the habit going
The first month naturally takes longer than five minutes, because you’re entering every fixed expense for the first time and getting used to where things live in the app. From the second month onward, the process shortens considerably: most fixed expenses stay the same, so you’re mainly confirming figures and updating the one or two that changed, plus refreshing your paycheck amount for the new period.
If your situation changes significantly (a move, a new job, a big new recurring bill), treat that as a reason to rebuild the fixed-expense list more carefully rather than patching it quickly. A five-minute update assumes the underlying structure is still accurate; it’s worth the extra time occasionally to make sure that assumption still holds.
It also helps to pick a consistent moment to do the update rather than doing it whenever you happen to remember. Payday is a natural trigger, since it’s also the moment your income figure needs refreshing anyway. Pairing the two means the five-minute update becomes attached to something that already happens on a predictable schedule, instead of a separate task competing for your attention.
Monthly uses cloud providers to store and sync your information across devices, so it isn’t a fully offline tool, and it doesn’t connect to your bank or import transactions automatically. Every number in the plan comes from what you enter. That’s the trade-off behind the five-minute process: it’s fast because the structure is already built for you, but it stays accurate only if you keep it updated.
What if a step doesn’t quite fit your situation
Not everyone’s month maps neatly onto these five steps, and that’s fine. If you’re paid weekly rather than monthly, treat “your paycheck” as your expected income for the period you’re planning, whatever length that is, and adjust your fixed-expense timing accordingly. If you don’t have a formal weekend reserve concept that resonates with you, think of that step more broadly as “discretionary spending you want to set aside on purpose.” The label matters less than the habit of deciding the number in advance.
Freelancers and anyone with irregular income can use the same five steps with one adjustment: enter your most conservative realistic estimate for the paycheck step rather than an average, and treat any income above that estimate as a bonus to allocate once it actually arrives rather than something to plan around in advance.
None of this requires getting the first attempt perfect. The value of the five-step flow comes from repeating it every pay period, not from any single month being flawless. A rough plan you actually keep updating beats a precise one you set up once and abandon.
Ready to try it yourself? Open Monthly and set up your first month. Start with your paycheck and your biggest fixed expenses; the rest of the list can grow as you think of it.