What is the Serenity Score?
The Serenity Score is a unique indicator created by Plan & Multiply. It measures your overall financial health on a scale of 0 to 100, taking into account not just one metric but your entire budgeting behavior.
Unlike apps that simply show you how much you've spent, the Serenity Score tells you how well you're actually doing. Are you sticking to your envelopes? Are you saving consistently? Do you have a buffer for emergencies? Is the trend going up or down?
How is the Serenity Score calculated?
The score combines four weighted factors for a complete picture of your financial health:
- Budget envelope compliance (40%): how many of your spending categories stayed within their limits this month. The more envelopes you respect, the higher this component.
- Savings consistency (25%): are you saving every month, even a small amount? Consistency matters more than the absolute number.
- Emergency buffer (20%): do you have a financial cushion to absorb unexpected expenses? This factor measures your resilience against surprise costs.
- 3-month trend (15%): is your financial situation improving or declining? This factor rewards progress, even if your absolute score is still modest.
Understanding your score
| Score | Level | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 80-100 | Excellent | Your finances are solid. Budget respected, consistent savings, comfortable safety margin. |
| 60-79 | Good | You're on the right track. Some room for improvement on savings or certain envelopes. |
| 40-59 | Needs attention | Frequent overspending or irregular savings. Time to tighten some budget categories. |
| 0-39 | Alert | Your budget is under pressure. Activate Emergency Mode and focus on essential needs. |
Why a score instead of just numbers?
Traditional budget apps show you charts, tables, and percentages by category. That's useful, but it requires effort to interpret. You have to analyze the data yourself and figure out what it all means.
The Serenity Score does that analysis for you. One number, instantly understandable. No financial expertise needed: if your score is going up, you're heading in the right direction. If it's going down, it's time to act.
It's also a powerful motivational tool. Watching your score climb from 45 to 62 over three months is far more rewarding than staring at an expense chart. The gamification creates a positive habit: you open the app to check your progress, not out of obligation.
The Serenity Score for couples
When you use Plan & Multiply as a couple (via QR code sharing), the Serenity Score becomes a shared household score. It reflects the financial health of the household, not just one person.
This makes it an excellent tool for financial conversations. Instead of arguing about specific purchases, you discuss together how to improve the score. The goal is shared, the pressure is on the system, not on individuals.
A concept unique to Plan & Multiply
The Serenity Score doesn't exist in any other budget app. YNAB, Mint, Goodbudget, Copilot — none of them offer a holistic financial wellness indicator. They give you raw data. Plan & Multiply transforms that data into an actionable diagnosis.
It's one of the app's key differentiators, and the goal is for this term to become synonymous with Plan & Multiply in search results. If you're searching for "serenity score budget," you should find this page.
