About the Budget Planner & Expense Tracker
Every budgeting app wants the same thing before it shows you a single number: your bank login. Mint wanted it, then shut down. YNAB wants it and $99 a year. This planner takes the opposite deal: you get the budgets, the tracking, the statement import, the insights — and your financial data never leaves your device. There is no account, no bank connection, and no server that ever sees a transaction.
The trick that makes it practical is the CSV import. Every bank and credit card already lets you download your statement as a CSV file. Drop that file here and the planner reads it in your browser: it figures out which columns are the date, description, and amount, handles both sign conventions, categorizes each charge with keyword rules, and skips anything you've imported before, so re-dropping last month's file is always safe. You get the "connected app" experience with a file that never travels.
What it does
- Monthly budgets by category: ten sensible categories out of the box (add your own, with emoji), each with its own budget and a progress bar that turns amber at 80% and red when you're over. Budgets carry forward automatically, so setup is a one-time job.
- Safe-to-spend, the honest number: what's left of your total budget divided by the days remaining. "You can spend $23 a day for the rest of July" beats any pie chart for actually changing behavior.
- Bank statement import: drop any bank or card CSV. Column layout auto-detected, dates in common formats parsed, purchases separated from refunds and income, every row previewed with its guessed category before anything is saved. Duplicates are skipped on re-import.
- Auto-categorization that learns: a built-in merchant dictionary handles the obvious (coffee shops to Dining, gas stations to Transport, streaming to Subscriptions). Correct a category once and the planner offers to remember that merchant forever — your rules apply to everything you import afterward.
- Recurring-charge radar: the same merchant charging a similar amount in consecutive months gets flagged, and the monthly total of your subscriptions is put in front of you. It's usually an educational number.
- Insights and charts: a category doughnut, a cumulative spending line against your budget pace (you can see yourself drifting by day 12), top merchants, month-over-month category changes, and a projected month-end total.
- A real monthly report: print a clean statement-style summary or export any month as CSV.
- Optional cloud backup (Premium): flip the ☁ toggle and your whole budget — months, categories, rules — syncs to your account, so the laptop and the phone see the same numbers. Off by default, opt-in, and everything works fully on-device without it.
How to use it
- Set budgets for the categories you care about. Skip the rest; unbudgeted categories still track.
- Once a week (or once a month), download your bank's CSV and drop it in. Correct any categories that look wrong — each correction teaches the planner.
- Check the safe-to-spend number before discretionary purchases. That's the whole discipline.
- At month's end, flip back a month and read the insights. Then the budgets are already set for the new month.
Why no bank connection is a feature
Aggregators work by holding your bank credentials or an access token, forever, on their servers. That is a permanent, high-value target, and the business model it funds is usually your data. A CSV file you download yourself and read locally gives you the same transactions with none of the standing risk. The five extra clicks a month are the price of your bank password never being anyone else's problem.
Good to know
- Everything is stored in your browser's local storage on this device. Clearing site data clears your budget, so Premium cloud backup or an occasional CSV export is your safety net.
- The categorizer's built-in dictionary is tuned for common US merchants, and your own rules always win over the built-ins.
- Amounts are treated as one currency; you can change the symbol (dollar, euro, pound, and more) in the header of the budgets panel.
- Income rows in an imported statement are detected and set aside — this tracks spending against budgets, which is where the leaks are.
- There are no limits: track one month or ten years.
Common questions
How do I track my expenses without linking my bank account?
Two ways, both fully private: type expenses in with the quick-add row, or download the CSV statement your bank or credit card already offers and drop it into the import box. The file is read by your own browser, categorized locally, and never uploaded anywhere. No Plaid, no bank login, no account.
How does the automatic categorization work?
A built-in set of keyword rules recognizes common merchants (coffee shops to Dining, gas stations to Transport, streaming services to Subscriptions). When you correct a category, the planner offers to remember that merchant, and the new rule applies to everything you import later. The rules live in your browser, not on a server.
What is the safe-to-spend number?
It divides what is left of your total monthly budget by the days remaining, giving one honest daily number, for example spend up to $23 a day for the rest of July and you land on budget. It updates with every expense.
Can it find subscriptions I forgot about?
Yes. The recurring-charge radar looks for the same merchant charging a similar amount in consecutive months and totals them up, which is usually an uncomfortable and useful number.
Is this budget planner really free and private?
Yes. Every feature runs in your browser and your financial data stays on your device. Premium members can optionally turn on cloud backup to sync their budget across devices; it is off by default and opt-in.
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