Glossary
The words behind the budget
A plain-language reference for the terms Even Cents uses. No jargon for its own sake — just the handful of ideas that make paycheck budgeting click.
- Paycheck budgeting
- Treating each paycheck as its own small budget — assigning the check to the bills, cards, and savings that come due before the next one arrives, instead of averaging everything across a calendar month.
- Zero-based budgeting
- Giving every dollar a job until you have zero dollars left unassigned. Saving and paying down debt count as jobs; the goal is no money sitting in your account without a purpose.
- Pay period
- The stretch between one paycheck and the next. In Even Cents each pay period is its own budget, starting at your paycheck plus anything carried over from the period before.
- Carryover
- Money left over at the end of a pay period that rolls into the next one. Your next period starts at your new paycheck plus the carryover, which builds a quiet buffer over time.
- Safe-to-spend
- What's actually left to spend right now after every bill, card payment, and savings transfer for the current pay period has been accounted for — not just your account balance.
- Sinking fund
- Money set aside a little at a time for a large, predictable expense — insurance, taxes, the holidays — so the bill is already covered when it lands instead of becoming a crisis.
- Recurring transaction
- An income or expense that repeats on a schedule (weekly, bi-weekly, twice a month, monthly, and so on). Even Cents adds these to each pay period automatically so you don't re-enter them.
- Three-paycheck month
- A month with an extra paycheck, which happens a few times a year on weekly and bi-weekly schedules. Regular bills are usually covered by the other checks, leaving the extra one free to direct.
- Encryption at rest
- Storing data in encrypted form so it can't be read straight from the database or backups. In Even Cents the key is derived from your password, so the operator can't read your data.
- Recovery code
- A one-time code shown when you sign up that can unlock your account if you forget your password. Lose both your password and your recovery code and your data is unrecoverable — store it somewhere safe.
Want to see these in practice? Start with the guides or how Even Cents works .