Pluto Budgeting vs Scary Budget

Most budget apps tell you where your money went. Pluto tells you what you can safely spend today, and makes sure the big stuff is covered before you do. Budgeting by paycheck, not by month. Your bills don't care about calendar months. Rent is due on the 1st. Car insurance hits in March and September. Your paycheck lands every two weeks. Pluto works the way your money actually works. Tell Pluto your income schedule and your bills, and it creates a transaction for every upcoming occurrence (rent, utilities, subscriptions, insurance, all of it), organized by pay period. After setup it mostly runs itself: confirm a match and move on. You're comparing real transactions against your planned ones, not asking whether a coffee run counts as Shopping or Groceries. Safe to Spend: the number you actually need. Your bank balance doesn't know your rent is due in four days, or that your car registration lands next month. Safe to Spend does. It takes your current balance, your upcoming scheduled transactions, and what you've set aside for savings, then gives you one number per account, updated constantly. Never get blindsided by a big bill again. With Scheduled Savings, you tell Pluto about an irregular expense (car insurance, property taxes, holiday spending, an annual subscription) and it sets aside a little from each paycheck so the money is ready when the bill arrives. $600 car insurance due in six months? Pluto spreads it across your paychecks, roughly $46 at a time. By the time the bill hits, it's already funded. No scrambling, no overdraft. It works for anything outside a monthly rhythm: HOA dues, a family vacation, back-to-school shopping, a birthday you know is coming. Set it up once and stop thinking about it. Transactions that match themselves. When a bank transaction comes in, Pluto checks your planned transactions and suggests the match. You confirm or adjust, with no manual categorization and no month-end reconciliation. The Pay Period Forecast shows what's coming, so nothing lands as a surprise. A free tier you can actually run on. The free tier includes full scheduling, Scheduled Savings, and manual transaction entry. Premium adds automatic bank sync so transactions import themselves, plus priority support. Premium also connects Apple Card, Apple Cash, and Apple Savings. Pluto is $9.99 a month or $99 a year. No ads. No selling your data. Pluto exists because the alternatives were too simple to be useful, too complex to stick with, or too expensive to justify. What you get: • Safe to Spend, calculated per account in real time • Schedule-based budgeting by pay period, not calendar month • Scheduled Savings for irregular and annual expenses • Smart matching between bank transactions and your scheduled bills • Pay Period Forecast to see what's coming before it arrives • Bank sync via a secure, read-only connection (Premium) • Apple Card, Apple Cash, and Apple Savings support (Premium) Your money, finally making sense. Terms of Service: https://www.plutobudgeting.com/terms

Money gets hard to manage when the balance in your account and the life on your calendar stop feeling connected. Scary Budget connects them. It turns the money you have, the money coming in, and the commitments ahead of you into a working cash-flow model for your personal life. What can my money support? That is the question Scary Budget is built around. Add income, bills, subscriptions, transfers, card payments, payment plans, and one-time expenses. Scary Budget turns them into a daily checking forecast, then helps reconcile that forecast against posted activity. One month becomes a reusable model for the weeks ahead. You can inspect each source, correct it, and see how changes flow through the forecast, credit views, and insights. This is the kind of thinking people use to run something with care. Know what is committed. Know what is flexible. Know where the pressure points are before the decision arrives. WHAT SCARY BUDGET MODELS • Checking balance by day See when money comes in, when money leaves, and where the tight days land. • A plan with real timing Model recurring bills, paychecks, transfers, subscriptions, credit card payments, payment plans, one-time expenses, variable amounts, and end dates. • Reconciliation against reality Compare posted bank activity with what you expected. Confirm matches, correct dates or amounts, archive what happened, and keep the forecast current. • Judgment that stays with you Bank data is evidence. Your judgment remains the source of truth. Review the plan, correct the source, and keep the model yours. • Context for unclear charges Optional connected-inbox search can help find the receipt, item, order, service, subscription, or installment behind a confusing bank description. • Credit decisions connected to cash Track card balances, limits, utilization, APR, minimum payments, and payoff strategies alongside the checking forecast those payments affect. • Insights from the same model Explore spending by category, merchant, and month. BUILT FOR REAL FINANCIAL LIFE Scary Budget supports the questions that come up when timing matters. What can I support before payday? What is my lowest balance this month? Can I move this bill? Can I make an extra card payment? What changed since I made the plan? What was that charge? Your spending choices stay yours. Discretionary spending can stay discretionary. Net worth stays optional. Bank connection stays optional. FREE MANUAL MODE Scary Budget works without a bank connection. Manual planning, CSV import, forecasting, reconciliation, credit tools, insights, and export are free to use. OPTIONAL SCARY BUDGET+ Scary Budget+ adds live bank sync and connected-inbox search through a paid subscription. Bank sync reduces repetitive work. It does not replace the plan, and it is not required to understand your money. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Your saved financial plan is encrypted on your device before it is stored. Scary Budget does not sell your personal or financial information and does not show ads. Bank connections are read-only. Connected-inbox search is optional. SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS Scary Budget+ is available as a monthly or annual auto renewing subscription. Payment is charged to your Apple ID at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage them in your App Store account settings. Privacy Policy: scarybudget.com/privacy Terms of Service: scarybudget.com/terms How Scary Budget protects your data: scarybudget.com/security Learn more at scarybudget.com