I love calendars. Expense trackers are all lists. So I built my own.
Hey IH 👋
I have a confession: I’m obsessed with calendars.
Not in a productivity-guru way.
I just see things better when they live on a timeline.
If it’s not on a calendar, it basically doesn’t exist in my brain.
That’s when I ran into a problem with tracking expenses.
The problem with expense trackers
Every app I tried worked the same way:
Endless lists. Newest → oldest. Scroll forever.
Mint? List.
YNAB? List with more steps.
Wallet? List with nicer colors.
But lists don’t answer the questions I actually care about:
Where did my money go last Tuesday?
Was this week worse than the previous one?
Why does spending always spike near the end of the month?
Scrolling through transactions never gave me clarity — just more data.
The Notion phase (and why it failed)
Being a Notion nerd, I tried building my own setup:
Calendar view
Database with categories
Filters, colors, emojis
It worked… for about two weeks.
Then reality kicked in:
❌ Slow on mobile — adding an expense took ~30 seconds
❌ Weak analytics — charts are very limited
❌ Missing finance basics — recurring expenses, fast entry, budgets
Notion is incredible — but it’s a general-purpose tool trying to do everything.
I needed something purpose-built.
So I built Balmo
A calendar-first expense tracker.
You open it and immediately see:
👉 this month
👉 your spending over time
👉 patterns instead of lists
That’s it.
What it does:
📅 Calendar view — expenses as a visual timeline
⚡ Quick entry — tap a day → add expense → done (<10 sec)
🏷️ Smart categories — colors, emojis, Notion vibes
🔒 Manual only — no bank syncing, data stays yours
🌙 Dark mode — obviously
What I intentionally didn’t build:
Complex budgeting systems
Bank connections / Plaid
AI predictions
50 chart types no one uses
The goal is clarity, not complexity.
Tech stack (for fellow builders)
React 19 + Vite
Zustand
Tailwind
Firebase (Auth + Firestore)
Drag & drop (move expenses between days)
10 languages supported
~80 hours over ~2 weeks, mostly evenings after my day job.
Fun fact:
The drag & drop feature took longer than building the entire calendar grid 😅
Worth it? You tell me.
What I need help with
I’m genuinely unsure if:
this is a real problem
or if I’m just a calendar weirdo building tools for myself
So I’d love honest feedback:
Do you also hate list-based expense trackers — or am I alone?
Would a calendar view help you understand your spending better?
What’s the one feature that would make you try (or not try) this?
Try it (free)
If your reaction is “this is stupid” — please tell me why.
That’s genuinely the most valuable feedback.
Why I’m posting this here
Indie Hackers has been my daily read for the past year.
I’ve watched dozens of makers launch, fail, pivot, and succeed.
This is my first real project, and putting it out there feels scary — but necessary.
Roast away 🔥
Happy to answer any questions about the product, tech, or journey.
