I Tried Budgeting Apps, Desktop Tools and Excel Templates. Then I Built My Own

I wanted to get better at managing my money.

Like many people, I started with a budgeting app.

It seemed like the obvious solution. I could record my income and expenses, see where my money was going, set budgets and check everything from my phone.

And it did help.

But after some time, I realized something strange: I knew more about my money, but I still didn't feel confident about my financial future.

I wasn't looking for an expense tracker anymore.

I was looking for answers.

So I tried different ways of managing money — from the simplest ones to more sophisticated budgeting apps, desktop tools and Excel templates.

Every tool solved part of the problem.

I just couldn't find one that answered all the questions I actually had.

Let's be honest. This is probably where I started. I knew roughly how much I earned. I knew my regular bills. I had a general idea of how much I could spend.

Sometimes, that was enough.

As soon as my finances became more complicated, "I think I can afford it" stopped being a very comfortable answer.

This was surprisingly useful.

Writing everything down forced me to pay attention. I could create exactly the categories I wanted and record income, expenses, savings and upcoming payments in my own way.

There were no unnecessary features because there were no features at all.

For a simple financial situation, that could be enough.

For mine, it wasn't.

This seemed like the obvious next step.

My bank already knew how much money I had. It knew my transactions. It could show my balance and, in some cases, categorize my spending.

For tracking what had already happened, this was useful.

I wanted to know:

• What will my balance look like in six months?

• Can I afford a large purchase?

• What happens if my income changes?

• Which month could become difficult?

• How will a decision I make today affect my finances later?

This was the category I expected to solve everything. And I understand why budgeting apps are so popular.

They make everyday money management much easier. I could record spending, categorize transactions, set monthly budgets, monitor progress and look at reports without maintaining a spreadsheet.

For tracking daily spending, that was genuinely useful.

But eventually I noticed a distinction that became very important to me: Tracking money is not the same as planning money.

The more automatic the system became, the more I depended on it.

And when something went wrong, I couldn't always understand what had happened or get a useful answer from support.

I wasn't looking for a villain here. These are difficult systems to build and maintain.

But from my perspective, they added another kind of dependency.

I wanted to answer questions such as:

• What will happen to my money over the next few months?

• Can I make this purchase without creating a problem later?

• How much can I save while still covering everything?

• Where could a future cash gap appear?

• What happens if my income changes?

• What happens if an expense increases?

• What happens if I postpone a planned expense?

Maybe the problem was the phone.

So I started looking at desktop financial software and more advanced systems.

There were more features, reports and settings, more ways to organize information.

But I discovered that more functionality didn't automatically solve the problem.

I didn't need more reports. I needed better answers.

I wanted to change one number and understand what that change would do to the rest of my financial plan.

I wanted to see the future consequences of today's decisions.

That was different from simply recording transactions.

This was probably the most promising direction. I found many Excel budget templates, and want to be fair about them.

Some of them were genuinely good. Some were simple and practical. Others had beautiful dashboards.

Some focused on families, others on expenses. Some focused on savings, while others were designed for long-term planning.

The people who created them were clearly trying to solve a real problem and help people manage their money better.

I value that.

The problem wasn't that the templates were bad. But I couldn't find my complete list of requirements in one template.

One template might have excellent monthly budgeting.

Another might have a good savings tracker.

Another might have a dashboard.

But I kept finding something missing.

I wanted all of these things together:

• Long-term financial planning

• Income and expense planning

• Savings planning

• Future cash flow

• Future cash gap identification

• Multiple currencies

• Different exchange rates

• A clear view of my entire financial picture

• The ability to test financial decisions

And that was exactly where I kept getting stuck.

This was the turning point.

I had tried enough different approaches to understand what I actually wanted.

I didn't need another way to record yesterday's spending.

I needed to understand tomorrow.

So I wrote down the questions I actually wanted my financial system to answer.

Not abstract financial questions, but practical ones:

• What will my cash flow look like in three, six or twelve months?

• Can I afford this purchase without creating a problem later?

• How much can I safely spend today?

• Will I still reach my savings goal?

• What happens if my income changes?

• What happens if one of my regular expenses increases?

• What happens if I postpone an expense?

• Which future month needs my attention?

• Where will my next cash gap appear?

• How much money will I need?

• What happens when my income and expenses are in different currencies?

• What happens when exchange rates change?

• What will my financial situation look like over several years?

  I realized that I wasn't looking for another budgeting app. I was looking for a system that could answer my own questions.

I didn't start with a product idea. I started with a problem.

I built an Excel workbook for myself. Then I changed it again and again.

I added the things I actually needed and built the calculations around the questions I wanted to answer.

Eventually, it became a five-year financial planning system covering 60 months.

It included income, savings, expenses and cash flow.

It could work with multiple currencies and different exchange rates.

It could identify future cash gaps.

And, most importantly, it let me look at the consequences of my decisions before making them.

That was the part I had been looking for all along.

Not just: Where did my money go?

But: What is going to happen to my money?

No. I don't think they are.

A budgeting app can be a very good tool for tracking spending and building better financial habits.

A bank app can be useful for monitoring transactions.

A notebook can be enough for someone who wants a simple system.

An Excel template can be extremely useful for someone who wants more flexibility.

Each tool has its purpose.

The problem starts when I expect a tool designed primarily for tracking to solve a problem that requires planning.

For me, that distinction changed everything.

I didn't want to feel like I was controlling my money simply because I had a nice chart showing where I had spent it.

I wanted to make a decision today and understand what it could mean six months, one year or several years from now.

I couldn't find that system. So I built it.

And eventually, I decided to share it.

While searching for a better way to manage my money, I also talked to friends and people close to me about how they handle theirs.

I realized that most of us were using some combination of bank apps, budgeting apps, spreadsheets, notes, or simply keeping things in our heads.

But no one seemed to have a tool that gave them a complete picture of their financial future.

Then I started reading reviews of other budgeting tools. The same frustrations kept appearing again and again: people wanted more visibility, more flexibility, better planning, and more confidence in their financial decisions.

And it wasn't limited to one particular income level. The need was surprisingly universal. Whether people had a modest income or a much higher one, they still had the same fundamental question:

"Can I make this financial decision and still be okay later?"

That was when I understood that I wasn't trying to solve only my own problem.

So I built the system I had been looking for.

It started as an Excel template for myself. Today, it's SmartPlan.