Did I Handle the Important Things?

From budgeting to expense tracking, and then something else (that seems to have stuck).

By Henrik Dønnestad

What is budgeting?”

…꒰･-･ก꒱՞ ՞

I don’t know, and that’s probably not what I do.

As told by Google AI Overview: “Budgeting is the process of creating a plan to spend and save money, ensuring income covers expenses and supports financial goals. It enables tracking spending, reducing debt, and preparing for emergencies.”

Per this definition, it doesn’t sound so bad. Heck, it makes a lot of sense. But somewhere between the definition and the tools built around it, something gets lost.

Budgeting makes sense (I’d like to think that). It just so happens that for where I am right now, it feels… intimidating, or a lot? So as an attempt to quell the anxiety of spending without context, I’ve been increasingly thinking of starting with something more manageable: knowing what’s important to me (like rent, water and electricity, and that Audible subscription I should start using again), and knowing that those things are taken care of.

Once upon a time, I thought an expense tracker would solve the case of budgeting/managing expenses for me. So much so that I built my own (because all the others out there just weren’t doing the trick for me). I barely used it.

Well… almost barely. Of all the features I’d included, one stuck: the expenditure table, *aggressively throwing sparkles into the ethers.

It was a simple list of what I needed to handle, plus everything else. This table replaced the scraps of paper where I’d scribble everything down when the coins came home. It gave me a clear picture of my priorities, and what was left at the end of each period. That was something I could work with.

But, it didn’t last long. I’d buried the feature deep enough in the tracker that it quietly faded along with everything else. The feeling that something was missing, though? That never went away. Every month, that small nudge crept back: ‘Is everything covered?’ It turns out expense tracking wasn’t really what I wanted.

One day, that nudge felt too uncomfortable to continue sitting with, so I stopped ignoring it. “Let’s build something that tells me: did I handle the important things, and what’s remaining. That’s it.” So, I did, and welcomed sweet relief two nights later.

But, as I was building this simple “what’s important, did I handle it, and what’s left” tool, I got thinking. The core feature was there — list the important things, see what’s left — but what about the act of handling them? These aren’t small things. Paying rent, water, or buying food to feed myself should feel heroic. Like a real achievement, not a loss.

After some more thinking (yeah, I do that a lot — (ᵕ — ᴗ — )), I added a gold coin as a signal of that appreciation. And it worked. (The gold coin did also led to some truly wild name suggestions for the tool, which were eventually retired after careful consideration.)

Now when I open the app and see that payment for Wi-Fi with the gold coin next to it, I feel good. Like: “Yeah, I did that.”

“Noice, me.”

I still don’t know if this is budgeting, at least not in its more “common” form. But I know what’s handled, I know what’s left, and when I take care of something, I feel good about it. That’s enough for me. And maybe it’s enough for someone else too.

Thanks for reading. See you in the next one.

Authors note

If any of this resonates, I’m working on Good Enough Budget — a small tool for helping you buy that coffee without wondering if it’s a good idea. Know what’s spoken for, what you’ve spent, and what’s actually left.

Early access is open at goodenoughbudget.com.

Cover image by Henrik Dønnestad on Unsplash

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