Getting started with Dura: your first evening at the table

Setting up Dura takes one evening at the table with your partner: sign up, create your household, choose envelopes, invite each other and record your first cash in. This guide walks through each step in order, so by bedtime the envelopes on your phone match the cash in your hands.

Before you start: what to have ready

Ten minutes of preparation makes the rest of the evening easy. Have these to hand:

• A rough idea of what you spend each month on groceries, transport, school and the other regular things.
• The cash you expect to share out, or the amount you are about to swap from Payoneer or the bank.
• One savings goal you both agree on, and a target amount.
• Your partner, with their phone.

If you want to look around before entering anything real, choose "Play with a sample month". Dura creates a separate sample household full of demo data, with a banner that reads "Sample data. Nothing here is real." It never mixes with your real household, and you can delete it in one tap when you are done exploring.

Set up your household, envelopes and piggy bank

1. Sign up. Go to Dura and start your table with your email address and a password.
2. Name your household. Pick something you will both recognise, like "Moyo house" or "Tendai and Rudo".
3. Pick your envelopes. Dura suggests six with monthly budgets: Groceries $120, Transport $60, Gas $25, Airtime & data $30, School $50 and Fun money $40. That is $325 a month in total. Keep the ones you use and change the budgets to match your real spending.
4. Set your piggy bank. Fill in "Saving for" (for example, Emergency fund) and a goal amount. Every household has exactly one piggy bank, so choose the goal that matters most right now.
5. Check Settings. Set the day your month starts (any day from 1 to 28), your time zone (it starts as Africa/Harare) and your currency symbol. You can also rename envelopes, give them an emoji and a colour, and put them in the order you use them.

Not sure what budgets to choose? Our cash envelope budget guide for couples has a worked example and tips on setting numbers you can actually keep.

Invite your partner to the same table

Dura works best when each of you has your own login on the same household. There are two ways to invite someone:

1. By email. Send an invite to your partner's email address. The invite lasts 7 days, so it is the right choice if they are away or busy tonight.
2. With a join code. If you are sitting together, share the 6-character join code. It lasts 24 hours.

Once your partner has joined, they can also sign in with a magic link sent to their email. From then on, changes show up live on both phones: when Tendai records a spend, Rudo sees a notice saying "Tendai added a spend".

Your household is sealed off from every other household. Receipt images open only for signed-in members of your household, through links that expire after 5 minutes, and the coach only sees your own household's data.

Take the welcome tour and finish Learn the table

The first time each of you opens the table, Dura runs a short spotlight tour that points at each part of the screen. You can skip it, and "Show me around again" in Settings starts it again whenever you like.

After the tour, the "Learn the table" card shows six steps. Each one ticks itself off when you do the real thing, not when you read about it:

1. Put cash in: tell Dura about money you got and split it into envelopes.
2. Record a spend: take cash out of an envelope for something you bought.
3. Scan a receipt: snap one and Dura suggests the envelopes.
4. Move cash between envelopes: short on transport? Borrow from another envelope.
5. Count an envelope: check the real cash matches what Dura expects.
6. Ask the coach: ask anything about your money.

Finish all six and you earn the "Table ready" sticker, gold, with confetti. It joins your household's stamps, one of ten you can collect together. Our guide on making budgeting fun lists every stamp and how to earn it.

Record your first Cash in

This is the step that brings the table to life, and it ticks off the first item on the checklist. Here is how it goes:

1. Tap "Cash in" and pick the funding source. Payoneer, FNB and Other are set up for you.
2. Enter the electronic amount (what left Payoneer or the bank) and the cash in hand you actually got.
3. Read the exchange cost. Dura shows it in dollars and as a percentage.
4. Split the cash across envelopes. Each row shows what that envelope needs to cover the month. Tap "Fill to budget" to fill them, then "Rest to piggy" to send whatever is left to your savings goal.
5. Save. The button stays disabled until the splits add up exactly to the cash, so not a dollar goes unaccounted for.

Worked example: Rudo swaps $400 from Payoneer and gets $385 in cash. Dura shows an exchange cost of $15, which is 3.75%. "Fill to budget" puts $325 across the six envelopes, and "Rest to piggy" sends the remaining $60 to the emergency fund. Their first cash in also earns the First stuffing stamp.

That $15 is worth watching. Our guide to budgeting when you earn online and spend cash shows how to bring it under 3%.

Install Dura on your phone's home screen

Dura runs in the browser on any phone, and you can install it to your home screen so it opens like an app with one tap. Both of you should do this on the first evening, because a budget you can open in two seconds is a budget you will actually use at the till.

• On most phones: open the site on your phone and choose Install.
• On iPhone: open the site, tap Share, then choose Add to Home Screen.

Dark mode follows your phone's setting. Dura plays a cha-ching when you record a spend and a soft thud when a spend pushes an envelope over budget. If you would rather keep it quiet, untick "Sounds on" in the account screen.

From tomorrow, the everyday habits take over: recording spends, scanning receipts and counting cash. The receipts, IOUs and counting guide covers each one.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a partner invite last?

An email invite lasts 7 days. A 6-character join code, which is handy when you are sitting together, lasts 24 hours.

Can I try Dura without entering real numbers?

Yes. Choose Play with a sample month to get a separate sample household full of demo data. It never mixes with your real household, and you can delete it in one tap.

How do I see the welcome tour again?

Go to Settings and choose Show me around again. The spotlight tour runs again from the start.

Can I change my envelopes after setup?

Yes. In Settings you can rename envelopes, reorder them, give them an emoji and a colour, change their monthly budget, or archive one once it is empty at $0.