#What it is
A personal budgeting web app that reverses the typical spending-then-tracking loop. You write your budget at the start of the month — planned income and per-category expense targets — then track transactions against the plan with live variance.
#What I built
- Plan-first budgeting: Monthly budget with planned income and per-category expense targets, enforced before spending mode becomes useful
- Live variance tracking: Planned minus actual, per category, updated with every transaction — green for under budget, red for over
- Subscription automation: Set a rule once (name, amount, cadence, charge day) and the app posts transactions automatically — with three-path idempotency to prevent duplicates
- Timezone-aware scheduling: Charge dates calculated in the user’s local timezone, not the server’s
- Catch-up recovery: If the app is offline, it walks back through every missed charge date and posts them all
- Analytics dashboard: Bar, pie, and line charts with auto-generated insights — over-budget warnings, top spending categories, month-over-month changes
- CSV export: Pull transaction data into a spreadsheet
#Read more
For the full technical writeup, see the blog post: XYZBudget v1.1 — Plan First, Then Spend.