Set up your first budget

After you create an account, a short setup builds your starting categories and your first monthly plan. A short Good Steward Money intro covers the screen first, unless your device is set to reduce motion. Select it or press any key to skip it. The key does nothing else. The welcome page estimates about 5 minutes. If your account has no plan yet, it also says that a 30-day free trial starts when you pick a plan and that a card is needed to start it.

Steps

The pages after the welcome page show four numbered steps at the top: About you, Your path, Review & prioritize and Plan. After you choose Keep it simple, they show three, without Review & prioritize. On a phone, the steps show numbers without names.

1. On the welcome page, select Let's begin.
2. On About you, select each statement that is true for you, such as I rent or I have kids. Choose the season of life that fits best. Both questions are optional.
3. Select Continue.
4. On Your path, choose how to start. See Setup paths and life templates.
5. On Review & prioritize, change the category list, then select Next: plan amounts. Setup skips this step if you choose Keep it simple or Start with the standard set. See Review your starting categories.
6. On Plan, enter your monthly income, adjust the amounts and select Start my budget. See Pencil in your first plan.

Your answers on About you decide which categories start checked in the guided setup, which templates show Good fit and what Keep it simple creates. Your season of life sets the starting percentages on Plan, unless your categories come from a template.

What setup creates

Good Steward creates your categories when you finish Review & prioritize, or when you choose Keep it simple or Start with the standard set. They keep the order you set. Start my budget then adds:

• Planned amounts for each category, from the current month through December. It does not replace an expense amount that is already set to something other than $0.00.
• A budget template named Starting Plan with the same monthly amounts. It becomes your active template.
• A default for the Budget page: Group view or Category view, depending on how you set amounts. See Group view and Category view.

Setup does not create accounts, transactions, rules, schedules or goals. The Your first week card on Home lists what to do next. See Your first week checklist.

After you finish

• If your account has no plan yet, the Billing page opens. Choose a plan to continue to your budget. See Start a plan or free trial.
• If your account has a plan, the Budget page opens on the current month. A banner names the months that now have amounts and links to add an account.

Leave and come back

• Good Steward saves your answers, choices and plan numbers as you go.
• If you close the page, the next visit opens the welcome page again with your answers filled in. Select a numbered step at the top to jump back to a step you reached before.
• To leave setup, select Skip setup for now at the top right of any setup page. See Skip setup or start it again.