How I tricked my partner into caring about finances

Have you ever tried talking to someone about money who just… didn’t care?

Not in a reckless way, just a “this stresses me out, so I avoid it” way. That was my partner. Spreadsheets didn’t work. Advice didn’t land. Conversations stalled.

So instead of pushing harder, I tried something else. I turned financial decisions into a game. Short scenarios. No lectures. Just “what would you do here?”

It worked better than I expected. Not only did it get engagement, it started real conversations. And over time, it taught both of us a lot about how we think about risk, tradeoffs, and consistency.

That’s where MoneyRank started. Moneyrank.onrender.com

The idea is simple: each day, you’re given a short financial scenario and asked to rank the options based on what you’d actually choose. No right answer. No optimization pressure. Just an honest snapshot of how you think in that moment. Over time, patterns start to show up, around risk, consistency, short-term vs long-term thinking, loss aversion, and how those things shift with context or mood.

It’s closer to journaling than budgeting. But instead of writing about feelings, you’re recording choices.

Building it has felt oddly familiar. Like staring at yourself from a slightly different angle and realizing things you didn’t notice before. And the early users who’ve stuck with it have said similar things — not “this helped me make more money,” but “this helped me understand why I do what I do.”

That’s the goal.

Right now, MoneyRank is still small. I’m experimenting with question design, cadence, and what insights actually matter versus what just looks interesting. I’m trying to keep it lightweight and honest, without turning it into another tool that nags or judges you.

I’m sharing it here because Indie Hackers tends to attract people who think a lot about decisions — especially the invisible ones. I’d genuinely love feedback from anyone who’s built habit-based products, journaling tools, or anything where the value compounds slowly.

Still figuring this out as I go. If you’re interested, happy to share more, and if you think it’s a bad idea, I want to hear that too.