Why does Roo use pouches instead of categories?

A traditional category is a label you apply after the fact — you spend, then sort the transaction into a bucket to see where the money went. The numbers are a backward-looking report.

A pouch is the opposite: it holds real money set aside ahead of time. Because the sum of all pouches equals the sum of all your On Budget accounts, a pouch balance tells you what you can actually spend right now, not just what you spent last month.

That shift — from retrospective labeling to forward-looking zero dollar budgeting — is also what keeps the number of decisions small, since you’re funding a few meaningful pouches instead of sorting every transaction into the “right” category.