Cash Flow

Cash flow is the net amount of money moving in and out of your accounts over a period. Positive cash flow means you're earning more than you spend; negative cash flow means the opposite.

Why it matters

You can have a high net worth and still face a cash flow crisis — equity in a house doesn't pay the electric bill. Tracking cash flow weekly or monthly reveals whether your day-to-day finances are sustainable, and it's the earliest warning sign of trouble before debt starts accumulating.

Example

If you earned $4,800 this month and spent $4,200, your cash flow is +$600 — money available for savings or debt payoff.

How Ray helps

Ray aggregates all your income and expenses across connected accounts to show real-time cash flow. Run to see exactly how much money came in vs. went out, broken down by category.

Terminal

$ ray "what's my cash flow this month?"

Related terms

Net Income — Net income is your take-home pay after all deductions — federal and state taxes, Social Security, Medicare, health insurance premiums, and retirement contributions.

Budget — A budget is a plan for how you'll allocate your income across spending categories, savings, and debt payments over a set period — usually monthly.

Savings Rate — Your savings rate is the percentage of your income that you save or invest rather than spend.

Net Worth — Net worth is the total value of everything you own (assets) minus everything you owe (liabilities).

Liquidity — Liquidity refers to how quickly and easily you can convert an asset to cash without significant loss in value.

Try Ray free

Open source, local-first, and takes five minutes to set up.

$npm install -g ray-finance View on GitHub