Podsumuję wydatki: przekroczę budżet czy zmieszczę się w budżecie?

Podsumuję means I will sum up / I’ll total up.

It is the 1st person singular future of the perfective verb podsumować.

That matters because in Polish, a perfective verb often uses what looks like a present-tense form to express a future completed action:

• podsumuję = I will sum up
• not I am summing up

So the speaker means something like: I’ll total up the expenses, and then we’ll see the result.

Wydatki means expenses.

In this sentence, it is the direct object of podsumuję, so it is in the accusative plural.

For this noun, the nominative plural and accusative plural look the same:

• wydatki = nominative plural: expenses
• wydatki = accusative plural: (I sum up) expenses

That is very common with inanimate masculine nouns in Polish.

Because the noun budżet is in different cases in the two parts.

1. przekroczę budżet
   Here budżet is the direct object of przekroczę (I will exceed the budget), so it is in the accusative.
   For this noun, accusative singular looks the same as nominative singular:

• budżet = nominative
• budżet = accusative

2. w budżecie
   After the preposition w meaning in / within, Polish uses the locative case here:

• w budżecie = in the budget / within budget

So the change is caused by grammar, not by a change in meaning of budget itself.

They describe two opposite outcomes:

• przekroczę budżet = I will exceed / go over the budget
• zmieszczę się w budżecie = I will fit within the budget / stay within budget

A useful thing to notice is that Polish often uses zmieścić się w czymś for the idea of staying within a limit:

• zmieścić się w czasie = fit within the time
• zmieścić się w limicie = fit within the limit
• zmieścić się w budżecie = stay within the budget

In zmieszczę się, się is part of the verb zmieścić się.

This whole verb means to fit, to fit into, or in contexts like this, to stay within a limit.

So:

• zmieścić coś = to fit something in / to accommodate something
• zmieścić się = to fit oneself / to fit / to stay within

In this sentence, się is not really translated word-for-word as oneself. It just belongs to the Polish verb pattern.

Because the speaker is talking about the result that will become clear after summing up the expenses.

The logic is:

• Podsumuję wydatki = I’ll total up the expenses
• then: Will I exceed the budget, or will I stay within it?

So both verbs refer to a future outcome.

Also, both verbs are perfective, which fits the idea of a completed result:

• przekroczę = I will go over it
• zmieszczę się = I will manage to stay within it

Not exactly.

In this sentence, czy introduces an alternative question:

• przekroczę budżet czy zmieszczę się w budżecie?
• Will I exceed the budget or stay within it?

So here czy works like or in an either/or question.

But more generally, czy is also the common Polish word used to introduce yes/no questions or whether clauses:

• Czy to prawda? = Is that true?
• Nie wiem, czy przyjdzie. = I don’t know whether he’ll come.

So in this sentence, it is doing question work, not just acting like a basic coordinating conjunction.

The colon introduces the question that follows from the first statement.

So the structure is:

• Podsumuję wydatki: = I’ll sum up the expenses:
• przekroczę budżet czy zmieszczę się w budżecie? = the conclusion/result being considered

It sounds like: I’ll total up the expenses: will I go over budget or stay within it?

A colon is natural here because the second part explains what the summing up is meant to determine.

Usually, podsumuję most directly means I will sum up.

Depending on tone and context, Polish future forms can sometimes sound a bit like a spontaneous decision in English:

• Podsumuję wydatki. = I’ll sum up the expenses.

So in conversation, it may feel close to:

• I’ll sum up the expenses
• Let me total up the expenses

But grammatically, it is still a normal future form, not a special let me construction.

Because podsumowuję and podsumuję are different forms of different aspectual partners.

• podsumowywać / podsumowywać is imperfective (less common in everyday use here)
• podsumować is perfective

In practice:

• podsumowuję = I am summing up / I sum up
• podsumuję = I will sum up

Here the speaker means a single completed action in the future, so podsumuję is the natural choice.

Yes, literally it is in the budget, but idiomatically it means within budget or inside the budget limit.

So although English often says within budget, Polish commonly says:

• zmieścić się w budżecie

Literally:

• fit oneself in the budget

Natural English:

• stay within budget
• come in under budget or come in on budget, depending on context

No explicit pronoun is needed, because the verb endings already show the subject.

• podsumuję = I will sum up
• przekroczę = I will exceed
• zmieszczę się = I will fit / stay within

Polish often leaves out subject pronouns when they are clear from the verb form. Adding ja would usually sound emphatic:

• Ja przekroczę budżet? = I will exceed the budget? / Me, go over budget?

In the original sentence, leaving out ja is completely normal.