Why I Built A Budgeting App
Once you become honest with your finances, you understand what needs to change. Depo helps you do that.
When I started my professional career, my financial life was not perfect.
I was not making much money, and because of that, I had a pretty flawed idea about budgeting: I thought it was something you only needed once you were making enough money to manage.
My thinking was simple: if there is not much money, what is there to budget?
The mistake
That realization took years to arrive. But when it did, it changed how I thought about money entirely.
Found on Reddit.
Around ten or fifteen years ago, I found a budgeting spreadsheet on Reddit. It was a simple system: you entered your income, the things you had to pay for, the amount you wanted to save, and it gave you a clear amount: how much you could safely spend that day.
It was not trying to optimize every part of my life. It did not ask me to become a finance expert. It just showed me where I stood.
At first, I used the spreadsheet exactly as it was. Over time, I changed it and added things that made sense for me. Eventually, it became my own system. I used it for years — probably close to a decade.
Usually, I had it open as a Google Spreadsheet on my iPhone. If I bought something, I would add it right away, or later when I got back home. It was not the most elegant experience. Google Sheets on a phone is not exactly built for quickly logging a coffee or groceries while you are out. But I kept doing it because it worked.
Why it stuck
I kept using it because the number was enough. I did not need charts or categories. I just needed to know where I stood.
A recreation of the old Reddit spreadsheet. Deliberately utilitarian.
Bank balance is not spending money.
What you see vs. what's actually yours
I had been treating my bank balance as spending money. It was not.
I remember opening the spreadsheet one evening and realizing that I had been treating my bank balance as spending money.
It was not.
Some of it already belonged to rent, bills, and the things I said I wanted to save for. Seeing that split on one screen was uncomfortable, but also weirdly calming. Nothing had changed in my account that day. I just finally understood what the number meant.
It also made me realize that I needed a buffer. I could not make my finances work properly if every dollar in my account felt available to spend.
The shift
That did not mean I suddenly became perfect with money. I just started thinking about it. I spent a little less, cancelled subscriptions I did not need, and found some essential costs I could reduce. Then I started saving. Later, I started investing.
Income. Essentials. Savings. Today.
What I loved about this approach was how direct it was.
Your income comes in. You account for essentials. You put money aside for savings. Then you have a clear amount: what you can spend today.
Say you have money left after rent, bills, and savings, and ten days remain in the month. Depo turns what remains into a number for today. Spend less, and more carries into tomorrow. Spend more, and tomorrow adjusts.
It is not a limit designed to punish you. It is simply the clearest picture of what is safe right now.
There is no reset and no lecture. It is an honest update based on what happened. That is the same system Depo uses: income in, essentials and savings aside, then a daily safe-to-spend amount.
I did not need more categories, more charts, or a complicated system to maintain. I needed a clear answer to one practical question:
The only question
That is all the spreadsheet gave me. And it was enough to change everything.
Try it yourself
Safe to spend today
$135
$1,620 left ÷ 12 days
Too many taps. Too many settings.
I tried budgeting apps too.
Most of them felt extremely complicated. You had to click through too many things before you could add a single expense. The flow was not intuitive, and the system often felt rigid: if my real life did not match the plan, I was left feeling like I had failed the budget instead of the budget failing me.
Some apps had the opposite problem. They had endless settings, categories, rules, and dashboards. I love settings. I can spend a lot of time making everything exactly right. But after all that setup, the app still had to be useful every day.
That was the problem.
The principle
The spreadsheet was imperfect, but it did not demand that I become a different person just to understand my own money. It asked me to look at reality, make a decision, and keep moving.
From spreadsheet to Depo
Eventually, I thought: I know how to build things for the web. Why am I still opening a spreadsheet to do something I need to do almost every day?
I was not sure whether anyone else would want this. I only knew that I wanted a better version for myself.
Since I had much more experience in web development, I started with a small web app. I built the first version with TypeScript, React, a simple database, and Vercel. It was an MVP I could create quickly, test in real life, and improve while I was actually using it.
That small project became Depo.
I called it Depo because it is short for deposit. It felt right: a simple word about putting money somewhere on purpose.
After using the web version for a while, I knew I wanted to make it a real iOS app. I moved to Swift and began thinking much more seriously about the experience, the design, and every small interaction.
Building the app was one thing. Deciding what not to put in it took much longer.
The tap maze — adding one expense
7 taps to add a single expense. Depo does it in 3.
Three taps. Done.
I use Depo every day, so I think a lot about the small details.
Adding a purchase should not become a task. It should be quick enough that you do it while you are standing in a store, walking home, or remembering something you paid for earlier.
That is why, when you add spending in Depo, the amount is at the top. Then you enter the name of what you bought. You can choose a category if you want to — but you do not have to.
By default, it is just Other.
Not everyone wants to organize every purchase into categories, and that is completely fine. If you just want to add an expense, you can enter the amount, write what it was, tap Done, and move on. No extra screens. No extra confirmation buttons. No unnecessary steps.
Depo also remembers what you have entered before. Start typing the name of a purchase, and it can show you a previous entry. That means logging something familiar takes even less time.
The product is the details
So I designed every screen around speed. Not because speed is impressive, but because speed is what keeps the habit alive.
Designed to be opened
When I started building the iOS version, I did not want Depo to look like every other finance app.
A lot of financial products are designed to feel soft, calm, and overly polite. They use the same safe colors, the same gentle cards, and the same generic “we will fix your life” energy.
That is not Depo.
Depo is bold, loud, and direct. It has strong colors, thick black borders, and no soft fintech aesthetic. I wanted it to feel like a tool you actually want to open — not another app you avoid because it feels complicated, boring, or quietly judging you.
The number is not there to judge you. It is there to tell you the truth.
Sometimes that number will be red. That does not mean you failed. It means the plan needs attention. Maybe spending needs to pause for a while. Maybe an upcoming bill, a savings goal, or the month itself needs adjusting.
I wanted Depo to show that clearly, without turning it into a judgment. A negative number simply means that, after accounting for essentials and savings, more money is already committed than is available for the days left in the month.
Tomorrow adjusts, and you keep going.
You type it. You notice it.
Transaction appears, unnoticed.
You type it, you notice it.
Depo does not connect to your bank account. That is intentional.
I would not want to give another app access to my bank account, so I would never ask someone else to do it. But privacy is not the only reason.
When everything is automated, it is easy to stop noticing. Transactions appear after the fact. Money moves around. You can see it, but that does not always mean you are thinking about what you spent or why.
My routine with the spreadsheet was never complicated. I would buy groceries, get home, open the sheet, and enter the amount. Sometimes I did it immediately; sometimes later that night. It took less than a minute, but that minute changed the purchase from something that disappeared into a bank feed into something I had consciously chosen.
Depo keeps that moment of attention.
You enter what happened. Your number updates. You know where you stand.
By design
That is the whole point. Not automation. Not convenience. Just awareness.
The bigger picture.
The daily number is the center of Depo, and you can start there for free. The rest of Depo+ is built for the moments when you want to look further: a history you can return to, a clearer view of where the month went, and a bigger picture of what is changing over time.
You can see your net worth: everything you own and everything you owe, in one total.
That number is genuinely cool to watch over time. When you begin paying attention to your finances, saving more, and making more intentional choices, you can see the result. Not as some abstract idea, but as a number that grows because you started caring about it.
Depo also gives you room to go deeper when you want to: syncing across devices, importing and exporting your data, home-screen widgets, spending breakdowns, custom icons, and comparisons with your own past.
The bigger picture
The details are there when you want them. They are not thrown at you before you need them.
Net Worth
$0Watch it grow because you started caring.
Built for real life.
Depo is for people whose money does not fit neatly into a spreadsheet-shaped life.
For freelancers and self-employed people with uneven income. For people who have tried budgeting before and quietly stopped. For people who hate complicated finance apps. For overthinkers, artists, new parents, night-shift workers, skeptics, and anyone still figuring it out.
It started as a spreadsheet that helped me see my own financial situation clearly. Then it became a small web app I built for myself. Now it is an iPhone app built around the same idea that worked for me all those years ago: an honest number that helps you understand what is possible today.
I built it for people who do not want personal finance to become a project.
For people who are tired of guessing.
Stop guessing.
Start knowing.
The first honest budget app.