Glossary

By Travis Haggar · Updated Nov 1, 2026 · Drafted with AI help

The words Openbox Money uses on this site and in the app, and what each one means here. Where a term has its own guide or tool, the entry links to it.

Numbers

50/30/20 rule

A popular starting point for a budget: about half of take-home pay for needs, 30% for wants and 20% for savings and paying down debt.

Openbox Money's starter budget uses the same split on the monthly take-home pay you enter: half for needs, 30% for optional spending, 20% saved. Once your accounts are connected or imported, it can build one from your own spending instead.

B

Bills and subscriptions

Fixed, recurring costs. In the categories every household starts with: mortgage and rent, utilities, phone and internet, insurance, loan payments, subscriptions, and childcare and education.

Openbox Money looks for them in your history (see recurring bills and paychecks), and Safe to spend takes out the largest of a usual month of them, what's due this month, what you've already paid and your bills budget, if you set one.

Budget

A plan for the month, category by category: how much you expect to spend on groceries, dining out, savings and so on. The Budget page then shows how spending tracks against it.

Safe to spend uses your bills, essentials and savings budgets where you've set them, and counts more when more is due, spent or saved. Optional spending is always what you've actually spent, not a budget.

Read more: How Safe to spend works

C

Consumer unit

The Bureau of Labor Statistics' word for roughly a household in its spending surveys: a family, a person living alone or sharing a home but paying their own way, or people living together who share major expenses.

Averages "per consumer unit" are across all of them, including those that spent nothing in a category, so they aren't what a typical household spends.

E

Emergency fund

Money kept for the unexpected, like a large repair or a gap in pay. It's often counted in months of living expenses.

The emergency fund calculator works out a goal as one month of essential costs times the number of months you pick. There, essentials mean every cost you can't skip: housing, food, utilities, insurance, getting around and minimum debt payments, so rent and other bills count too. It doesn't pick the number of months for you; its page shows what FINRA, the FDIC and the CFPB say about it.

Read more: How Safe to spend works

M

Median

The middle value: half of the group has more and half has less. A few very large values can pull an average (the mean) up a long way but barely move the median. The net worth data page shows both.

Read more: How Safe to spend works

N

Net worth

Everything you own minus everything you owe. In the app, that's the balances of the accounts you count toward it (cash, investments, and things like a home or car you add yourself) minus cards, loans and mortgages.

Openbox Money records it every day. When an account is added or removed, the history is worked out again so that doesn't show up as a gain or a loss: the line moves when balances do. An account imported without a balance isn't counted as $0; the app asks you for its balance.

Read more: How Safe to spend works

O

Optional spending

Spending where you have the most room: in the starting categories, dining and drinks, shopping, entertainment, travel, personal care, gifts and donations, and hobbies. The 50/30/20 rule calls these wants.

Safe to spend counts what you've actually spent here this month, not a budget for it.

Read more: How Safe to spend works

P

Percentile

Where a value falls in a group: at the 60th percentile, about 60 in 100 have less and 40 have more.

The net worth by age tool compares one number with U.S. families in the same age group (by the age of the family's reference person) in the Federal Reserve's 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances. A percentile is a comparison, not a goal.

R

Recurring bills and paychecks

Charges and deposits that repeat on a steady schedule: every week, every 2 weeks, twice a month, monthly, every 3 or 6 months, or yearly. The app spots them in your history once the same charge or deposit has repeated enough times, at least three times for a monthly bill and twice for a yearly one, with steady enough amounts.

They're listed under Bills & income. The app plans around the ones it finds; confirm the real ones, and move any that aren't to Not recurring. Moves between your own accounts aren't counted as bills.

S

Safe to spend

The figure at the top of Openbox Money: the money left this month once your bills, essentials and savings are covered, minus what you've already spent on everything else.

It's income expected this month minus bills and subscriptions, essentials, savings, optional spending so far and spending not yet categorized. It never shows below $0, and mid-month it also shows the days left and an amount per day. On the month's last day, plans give way to what happened: it counts what actually came in and went out.

Read more: How Safe to spend works

Sample household

A made-up household with its own accounts, bills and budget, used to show how Openbox Money works. After you sign up, and before you pay, you can look around it. The demo shows the same household in your browser, with no account.

Read more: How Safe to spend works

Setting money aside

Holding some money back now for a cost that comes later. In the budget the app suggests, a bill that comes every few months or once a year is planned at its monthly average, so a little is set aside for it each month instead of the whole amount landing in one month.

Until the month's last day, Safe to spend counts at least that average for bills, and more in a month when more is due.

Read more: How Safe to spend works

T

Take-home pay

Pay after taxes and anything else taken out of a paycheck, such as retirement contributions or insurance: what actually reaches your bank account. The app's starter budget works from it; the 50/30/20 rule is usually described with pay after taxes.