If you're still managing money in a spreadsheet, this might change your mind. Or validate why you should stay.
I've talked to a lot of people about budgeting apps. The ones who say they "use a spreadsheet" aren't the ones who couldn't figure out YNAB. They're the ones who figured it out, used it for three weeks, and quit.
The reason they go back to Excel isn't laziness. It's control.
The Spreadsheet Mental Model
When you budget in a spreadsheet, you own everything:
- The data lives where you put it
- The formulas do what you wrote
- Nothing "syncs" unless you make it
- Nothing breaks because a third-party API changed
That's power. And every budgeting app on the market implicitly asks you to trade it away.
YNAB: Connect your bank, let us categorize your transactions, trust our sync.
Mint: Give us your credentials, we'll pull everything automatically.
Copilot: Beautiful UI, but your data lives in their cloud.
The pitch is "less work." The reality is: less control.
What Monee Actually Is
Monee isn't trying to replace spreadsheets. It's trying to be the spreadsheet that doesn't require you to build the spreadsheet.
Here's what I mean:
Manual entry, by design. You type in what you spent. Not because syncing is hard to build (it isn't), but because manual entry is a feature. When you type "$47 -- grocery run -- food," you're making a conscious moment of accounting. That pause is where spending awareness comes from.
CSV in/out. Your data is never locked in. Export as CSV, open in Excel, do whatever you want. I'll never be the only thing that can read your data.
No account required. Your budget is in localStorage. Close the tab, reopen it -- everything's there. You're not trusting my servers because there are no servers.
No graphs that lie. I didn't add a trend graph. Trend graphs make people feel productive without doing anything. I added a simple table. You see what you spent. That's it.
Who This Is Actually For
If you already have a working Excel budget, don't switch. Seriously. Your system works.
Monee is for:
- People who want to start but find Excel too blank-page
- People who've tried apps and quit over bank sync breaking
- People with privacy concerns who don't want a fintech company holding their financial data
- People on tight budgets who can't justify $15/month for YNAB when they're trying to save money
There's a dark irony in paying $15/month for a budgeting app when you're trying to cut expenses. Monee is free. Forever. No subscription. No premium tier.
The Hard Part About Being "Basic"
Here's what I've learned building this: the market rewards complexity. App stores reward feature lists. "Zero bank sync" is hard to sell as a feature.
But talking to actual users -- people who've used YNAB, Mint, Personal Capital, and quit them all -- the pattern is consistent:
"I just want to know where my money goes. I don't want to set up categories and rules and automations. I want to type in what I spent."
Monee is for those people.
If that sounds like you: monee-budget-tracker.vercel.app
No signup. No bank connection. No tutorial. Just open it and start.
Built this because I got tired of explaining my Excel budget to people. Now I just send them a link.
Tags: productivity, javascript, webdev, beginners
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