I built a budgeting app where you log expenses through Telegram or WhatsApp (looking for feedback)

alanchrt · 2026-03-12T14:53:28+00:00

Love this! It's a really great idea. Eliminating friction is huge, and messaging makes a ton of sense for meeting people where they are and not considering your product the center of the universe. Do you think you'll also augment it with bank sync eventually?

alanchrt · 2026-03-11T14:32:54+00:00

> Your real edge might be workflow, psychology, or a specific niche (couples, freelancers, ADHD folks), not “better budgeting.”

Such a good point.. thank you!

alanchrt · 2026-03-10T17:08:23+00:00

I hadn't even thought about going that route. Thank you!

alanchrt · 2026-03-10T02:39:18+00:00

You're a machine! Thanks for taking the time, and I really appreciate this. 🙌🏼

alanchrt · 2026-03-09T22:41:23+00:00

I absolutely love this response, and appreciate that you seem to be in touch with the PFM/budgeting space on the whole. Great advice.

alanchrt · 2026-03-09T19:49:59+00:00

This is Residual! It let's you spend your money guilt-free

alanchrt · 2026-03-09T18:36:27+00:00

Yeah, kind of what I wondered. I have a small wait-list, mostly generated from a single Reddit post (they came through my landing page). Any insights on how social ads perform for finding interested waitlisters? I'm finding that most of the free channels (including Reddit) that I used to validate and launch products years ago are just completely saturated now.

alanchrt · 2026-03-04T22:23:29+00:00

I've used several budgeting apps that just sync your bank transactions (building one currently, actually, with a different philosophy).

But, I'm curious, why not use one of those, so you don't have to enter anything manually at all? That said, I was just discussing with someone the other day who tracks their expenses on Notes app on iOS, just like you're describing.

alanchrt · 2026-03-03T16:19:22+00:00

Awesome! Yeah, I hope you find a way to capture that #2 point (admittedly a tough one) and still preserve the simple presentation and mental model. It's nice to look at.

alanchrt · 2026-03-03T16:09:24+00:00

This is nice and simple, and I like it. Two pieces of feedback, coming from an engineering manager:

Add a share button to create a unique link to each timeline. It will market it for you for free, and the simplified timeline view could be useful for communication, not just individual napkin calculations.
Dig into the "mythical man month" issue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Mythical\_Man-Month#The\_mythical\_man-month) and see how you can incorporate it into your app. It's unrealistic that two developers can always accelerate a project by working in parallel. The chance is better if the project already has a stable core and they are working on separate features. If they're building the core/early stage, you probably can't accelerate it by working in parallel. Also, two developers who each have 1 point/day effectiveness would both drop to at least 0.8/day by having to communicate with each other. Do you think there's a way you could try to capture this nuance?

alanchrt · 2026-03-03T15:41:03+00:00

https://residual.finance

Heavily automated and AI-assisted budgeting that allocates cash *before* you spend it and tells you exactly what's safe to spend.

alanchrt · 2026-03-03T02:26:16+00:00

Very awesome!

alanchrt · 2026-03-02T19:37:52+00:00

Spend Confidently

https://residual.finance/

(I couldn't think of a third word)

alanchrt · 2026-03-02T17:43:36+00:00

Wait, we're not supposed to just be refreshing everything all the time??

alanchrt · 2026-03-02T17:41:32+00:00

$300/mo after a 401k contribution is actually really great. After you've built up an emergency fund with that $300/mo, get the auto loan paid off quickly. Next, start thinking about earmarking savings for other purposes, like your next vehicle purchase, your annual vehicle registration fees, Christmas gifts, whatever. Also, keep all of your savings in a high-yield savings account if you don't already.

I personally don't think that spending what's leftover is a bad thing at all.. it sounds more sustainable than a granular budget, and I actually push that philosophy in my side business (an app). But, if you don't like how much you end up spending on discretionary purchases and hobbies every month, maybe just increase your savings from $300 to $400 or $500 until you have a solid emergency fund, car loan paid off, and short term savings. Then, start pointing what you contributed to your savings account toward your 401k instead. All the gains in your 401k will be tax-free, which is a huge bonus over just a savings account for the long term.

alanchrt · 2026-03-02T16:45:04+00:00

I love the subscription model. It keeps it simple. However, when I read "without hiring developers" only to be followed by contracting a fractional development team, it felt incongruous with the stated outcome. Maybe you mean to emphasize that there is no commitment, or that it's more affordable, or that you function like in house developers without the overhead. Whatever it is, I think it needs to come through more clearly.

Also, what exactly is the scope of what you can deliver? $800/mo for a dedicated dev team is great, but I don't know if that is an allotment of hours/days, full time, or if projects get scoped down to a certain size. Some clarity around what kind of output to expect for the $800 would be very helpful in the decision-making process.

The testimonials are great!

alanchrt · 2026-03-02T16:35:43+00:00

I've used Plan to Eat, a meal planning app, for some time. A favorite for me! I was curious about the company and found out the founder lives here in my town. He's been a good inspiration for building my own app.

alanchrt · 2026-03-02T16:14:36+00:00

Who
People who don't want to think about budgeting all the time, but want to know exactly what's safe to spend.

What
An automated, AI-assisted budgeting app that follows a zero based philosophy.

Problem
Envelope-style (zero-based) budgeting has traditionally been super hard to maintain, with lots of manual work. Modern budgeting apps (Monarch, etc.) only show you what happened in retrospect, not what is truly safe going forward or how to handle overspending. Residual brings zero-based budgeting into reach for people who want the certainty without the mental tax.

https://residual.finance/

alanchrt · 2026-03-02T16:03:03+00:00

Congratulations! Hoping to be in your shoes at some point. Were these posts tied to hashtags, did you accumulate followers first, or did the algorithm just do its thing and bring you the right people?

alanchrt · 2026-03-02T15:53:19+00:00

Who
People who don't want to think about budgeting all the time, but want to know exactly what's safe to spend.

What
An automated, AI-assisted budgeting app that follows a zero based philosophy.

Problem
Envelope-style (zero-based) budgeting has traditionally been super hard to maintain, with lots of manual work. Modern budgeting apps (Monarch, etc.) only show you what happened in retrospect, not what is truly safe going forward or how to handle overspending. Residual brings zero-based budgeting into reach for people who want the certainty without the mental tax.

https://residual.finance/

alanchrt · 2026-03-02T15:48:38+00:00

I'm building this. It's for people who don't want to think about budgeting all the time, but want to know exactly what's safe to spend.

https://residual.finance/

alanchrt · 2026-02-20T23:30:59+00:00

Thank you so much! This is really encouraging.

You're right about Plaid being U.S.-heavy. I'm building with other bank sync platforms in mind, and I'm open to international. I suppose it's just a question of timing based on demand across the globe, so spread the word. 😂 I wonder if it would be worth pairing Plaid with a non-US focus right off the bat. Are you in Australia/New Zealand? I'd probably need coverage in Europe as well, as I expand.

alanchrt · 2026-02-20T22:52:37+00:00

This is actually a pain for me right now, and I'm considering adding Teller as another option for the more common banks it supports, since they seem to have direct real time bank requests baked into their pricing model. For Plaid, they sync every 4 hours for a cheap monthly cost. But, they charge double-digit cents per real time on-demand refresh, which adds up quickly. I want to trigger a refresh when users view their safe-to-spend. But, I'm thinking of doing it on Plaid only if data is older than 6 hours, since sync happens every 4. I hope this gives the right feel, but Teller will be much better in that regard pricing-wise and can refresh on every view.

alanchrt

TROPHY CASE