Visualize Where Your Money Goes Each Month
Budget apps show you spending categories — groceries, rent, subscriptions — but they don't show the architecture of how money actually moves through your financial life. Your paycheck doesn't go directly to rent. It flows into checking, then splits to mortgage, savings, credit card payments, retirement contributions, and a dozen other destinations. Understanding this architecture is the difference between knowing your categories and knowing your system.
The Money Flow Analyzer uses a simple text syntax to define flows: Employer -> Checking $3,800 biweekly. Type your flows in the text editor and the table stays in sync — or edit the table and the text updates automatically. The directed graph visualization shows every flow as an arrow between nodes, making it immediately obvious where the big dollars go and where money pools up without a destination.
Source, Intermediate, and Sink Nodes
Every account in your flow diagram is automatically classified into one of three types. Sources only have outflows — your employer, rental income, side gigs. Sinks only have inflows — your mortgage, groceries, insurance premiums. Intermediate nodes have both — your checking account receives your paycheck and sends money to everything else. This classification reveals your financial structure: total income (sum of source outflows), committed outflows (sum of sink inflows), and unallocated savings (money sitting at intermediate nodes with nowhere assigned to go).
When to Use This Instead of a Budget Spreadsheet
A budget spreadsheet tracks actuals — what you spent last month. This tool models architecture — how your money is designed to flow. It's especially useful when you're setting up a new system (first job, new household, combining finances with a partner), evaluating whether you can absorb a new expense, or explaining your financial setup to someone else. The visual diagram makes it easy to spot when an account is overloaded or when a flow is missing.
Here's what the analyzer calculates:
- Total monthly income from all source nodes
- Total monthly outflows to all sink nodes (final destinations)
- Unallocated balance — money remaining at intermediate nodes
- Savings rate — unallocated as a percentage of income
- Per-node analysis showing inflows, outflows, and balance for every account
- All amounts normalized to monthly regardless of original frequency (weekly, biweekly, quarterly, yearly)
To see how your savings will compound over time, try the Compound Interest Calculator. To figure out the optimal split across retirement accounts, use the Investment Optimizer.