It’s that time of year again. The holidays are wrapping up, the wrapping paper has (mostly) been recycled, and if you’re like me, you’re looking at your bank account wondering where exactly December went.
As we look toward 2026, a lot of people are going to make New Year's resolutions about money. Usually, it involves complicated spreadsheets or apps that require you to link every single bank account you own.
I’m a software developer. I love automation. But when it comes to family finances, I’ve found that automation is actually the enemy of awareness. If everything happens in the background, you stop paying attention. That’s why, for 2026, I’m advocating for a system based on clarity, simplicity, and a little bit of manual effort.
Here is the system my wife and I use—and why I built Monee to support it.
The "Developer Paradox": Why Manual is Better
It sounds weird coming from a dev, but manually tracking income and expenses is the most important step toward financial control.
When I buy something online—and I admit, the temptation of one-click purchases is real—it’s too easy to forget it happened five minutes later. But if I have to pull out my phone and log that expense, I have to acknowledge it.
That’s why Quick & Easy Entry is the core of Monee. My life is shaped by limited time. I have a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old. I don’t have time to navigate five sub-menus while trying to keep the toddler from eating something off the sidewalk. With Monee, I enter the amount, pick a category, and I’m done in seconds.
Shared Finances, No Drama
My wife and I have a joint account. We don’t do "allowances" or keep score. Our philosophy is simple: no control, just mutual trust. However, trust works better when you’re both looking at the same data.
Using the Shared Household feature, we both have the app on our iPhones (it works Seamlessly Across Devices, so it’s fine if I’m on my Mac too). When she buys groceries or I pay for the climbing gym, it all goes into the same pot.
We don’t use this to police each other. I don’t care if she buys coffee; she doesn’t care if I buy a board game. But we do care if we’re drifting away from our savings goals. The Insightful Overview lets us sit down once a month, look at the charts, and say, "Okay, maybe we went a little hard on online shopping this month," or "Great, we have enough left over to boost the ETF investment."
The "Set It and Forget It" Stuff
While I believe in manual entry for variable spending (shopping, food, fun), I don’t want to manually enter my rent every month. That’s just tedious.
We use Recurring Transactions for the fixed stuff:
- The mortgage/rent.
- The monthly transfer to the MSCI World ETF.
- The internet bill.
This keeps the Insightful Overview accurate without me having to type in the same numbers every month.
Privacy First (Because I’m Paranoid)
One of the main reasons I developed Monee is because I didn’t like what other apps were doing with my data. I don’t want my financial history sold to advertisers. I don’t want targeted ads telling me to buy a new car just because I spent money on a mechanic. (My car is just a tool; as long as it drives, I’m keeping it.)
Monee has No Registration. You don’t sign up. You don’t give me your email. There are No Ads and No Tracking. Your data is yours. We also included Biometric & Code Protection, so you can lock the app with Face ID. It keeps things private, even from the kids if they get hold of your phone.
A Fresh Start for 2026
If you’ve tried budgeting before and failed, it’s usually because the system was too rigid or too annoying.
The "Monee Method" for 2026 is simple:
- Download the app. (It’s 100% Free—no subscriptions, no hidden costs. I built this to help people, not to squeeze them.)
- Set up your categories. (Use Custom Categories that match your life. We have categories for "Kids," "Bikes," and "Groceries.")
- Start tracking. Just try it for one month.
The goal isn’t to stop spending money. We still spend on things that bring us value—warm vacations, outdoor activities, time with friends. The goal is to stop spending money on things that don’t matter, so you have more for the things that do.
"Not needing is better than having." But knowing where your money is going? That’s the best feeling of all.
Give it a shot. It takes two seconds to start.
Happy New Year!
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