Built a spreadsheet to answer one question: what’s safe to spend today?

For years, I kept tweaking my budget, convinced I just hadn’t found the right setup yet.

More categories. Fewer categories. Adjusting monthly targets. It never quite worked.

I looked up average spending figures – what you typically spend on food, transport, everything. Set targets. Tried to stick to them.

The fixed part was straightforward. Bills and subscriptions, mostly the same each month.

But everyday spending felt unpredictable. One month groceries would spike. Another it was eating out and takeaway. Sometimes both.

And I had no good way to track spending as it happened – just occasional check-ins, sometimes only at month’s end.

Setting targets was hard. Tracking was harder. Staying on track felt impossible.

When budgeting apps appeared, it felt like exactly what I needed. Automatic categorisation. Monthly budgets based on actual spending.

But they didn’t help me stay on track.

Everything was based on monthly averages – and spending is rarely average. I’d see money left in categories, but couldn’t tell if spending it today made sense. Some months I’d spend nothing on clothes, others a lot. The average never matched the decision in front of me.

So I started checking more often. Weekly reviews. Eventually burndown charts to see if I was on pace.

But I was still looking backward. Even with weekly checks, one expensive meal or unexpected purchase would throw everything off.

What I actually needed was clarity about today.

So I made a spreadsheet. Remaining money divided by days left. One number, recalculated each day – a guide for what makes sense to spend, not a limit to enforce.

And it worked differently than I expected.

I’d see the number and think: I’ve got room today, but there’s that dinner on Friday. I’ll hold back a bit.

The short horizon – just the next few days – enabled me to pace myself proactively, not just react after spending.

I didn’t need to predict the whole month. I just needed to see what was directly ahead.

Monthly plans tried to control the unpredictable. Daily tracking let me pace through it.

That’s what Lång does. It turns ’Am I on track?’ into ’I can see that I am’.

Lång is in the App Store.