Sample budgets
See it with
real numbers first.
A blank budget is hard to imagine yourself in. So we built ten complete example budgets — a freelancer with wild income swings, a two-income family, a retiree on a fixed income, a student, and more. Pick whoever sounds most like you, load their whole budget into Ridgeline Budget, and click around before you enter a single number of your own. It's free, and it lands in its own workspace so nothing touches your data.
Pick a starting point
Ten lives, ten budgets.
Every one is a real, working budget you can open and explore. Fictional people — realistic money.
Maria — Freelance Designer
$7,000 in March, $2,100 in April. Maria's a freelance designer whose income never arrives in tidy, equal pieces — so she pays herself a steady "salary" from a buffer and sets taxes aside every month.
The Hendersons — Two Incomes, Two Kids
Two jobs, two kids, no patience for logging receipts. The Hendersons stopped categorizing every purchase and now watch one shared number — with sports, holidays, and back-to-school averaged so no month blows up.
Jordan — First Real Paycheck
First job at $48k, first apartment, first student-loan bill. Jordan's budget is about order of operations: loan and rent off the top, a first emergency fund fed before the fun money, one number to check daily.
Ava — Climbing Out of Debt
$14,000 across two cards and a car loan, on a decent income that never seemed to move the balance. Now her leftover money has a destination: it sweeps onto the highest-interest debt, month after month.
Frank & Rosa — Retired on a Fixed Income
The house is paid off, but Social Security and a small pension don't flex. So property taxes, insurance, and medical costs are added up for the year and set aside in smooth monthly slices — no surprises.
Priya — Single Mom, Tight Margins
One income, two kids, childcare eating a huge chunk — and zero time for a high-maintenance system. Bills and the irregular stuff come off the top; what's left is the number, and it still funds a small cushion.
The Nguyens — Saving for a First Home
A 20% down payment in three years, on purpose. Kevin and Mai treat the down-payment fund like a bill — a fixed amount off the top every month — and let the month-end surplus pile on to speed it up.
Marcus — High Income, Nothing to Show
$160k a year and broke by the 28th. Lifestyle quietly rose to swallow the raise. Marcus's fix is pay-yourself-first at scale: investing comes off the top before lifestyle gets a vote, and the surplus exposes the leak.
Sofia — Working Through College
A part-time paycheck against full-time tuition and textbooks that cost more than a flight. Sofia uses scaled-down sinking funds so semester-sized expenses aren't a crisis, with one simple number to watch between classes.
How it works
Loading a sample takes one click.
No bank linking, no setup, and it never touches a budget you've already started.
Pick a person
Choose whoever's situation looks most like yours and hit "Try this budget."
Sign up free
Create an account (no card needed). Free accounts can explore the full sample.
It loads its own workspace
The sample drops into a separate workspace, so anything you already have stays untouched.
Poke around
Change numbers, close a month, watch the surplus sweep. When you're ready, start your own.
Ready?
Find the budget that looks like
your life — and take it for a spin.
Every sample is free to load and explore. Your data stays yours, and there's never any bank linking.