Riley Tran had two passions in life: brunch and pretending she had her life together. At 24, she had mastered the art of curating an Instagram grid, assembling IKEA furniture without breaking into tears (mostly), and owning three planners—none of which actually had writing in them.
So when her debit card got declined at Taco Tuesdays (a truly humbling experience), Riley decided it was time to do the one thing she swore she’d never do: make a budget.
“I’m done being financially reckless,” she announced dramatically to her cat, Muffin, who was currently lounging on a stack of unopened credit card offers. “I will build a spreadsheet. A budget spreadsheet. Like a real adult.”
She googled “how to make a budget spreadsheet” and fell into a YouTube rabbit hole that left her more confused than a dog watching a magic trick. But hours later—after wrangling SUM functions, dropdowns, and color-coded expense categories—she had birthed her masterpiece. Her spreadsheet budgets weren’t just functional. They were art.
There were tabs for monthly spending, yearly goals, emotional impulse buys (titled “Cursed Midnight Amazon Purchases”), and even a pie chart that looked like it came straight out of a financial TED Talk.
“Spreadsheet budgets are the key to adulting,” Riley declared proudly, uploading a screenshot to her Instagram story with the caption: ‘Budgeting is my love language 💸’.
But maintaining her shiny new spreadsheet budgets turned out to be…a full-time job. Riley quickly learned that remembering to manually enter every expense was harder than resisting 2-for-1 oat milk lattes. She forgot to log her lunch, then a gas fill-up, then an emergency online shoe order (her reasoning: “rain is basically a health risk”).
By the end of the week, her beautiful budget spreadsheet looked like a haunted Excel document. Formulas were broken. Categories were mysteriously rearranged. The red warning box for “Overspending” had popped up so many times it felt judgmental.
Worse, she started lying to herself—rounding down expenses and “accidentally” leaving out things like delivery fees. Spreadsheet budgets had become a stressful monument to her own financial chaos.
That’s when Tasha, her roommate and semi-functioning financial adult, casually mentioned, “You know there are apps that track your spending automatically, right?”
Riley froze mid-scroll through a discount candle sale. “But spreadsheet budgets are classic. They’re romantic. They’re like hand-written letters… just with more cell references.”
“Yeah,” Tasha replied, “and no one writes letters anymore. Try an app.”
Skeptical but desperate, Riley downloaded an app called BudgetBabe. Within minutes, it linked to her bank accounts and categorized her spending with terrifying accuracy.
“$82 on takeout this week?” Riley gasped. “I don’t even remember being that hungry.”
The app sent her push notifications like, ‘You’ve exceeded your coffee budget. Want to adjust?’ and ‘Looks like Friday’s paycheck hit. Stay strong.’
Suddenly, spreadsheet budgets seemed like the horse-and-buggy version of financial planning.
Each time Riley opened her app, it was like opening the financial version of “This Is Your Life.” It told her what she spent, where she went wrong, and even suggested how to fix it—all without her needing to remember if a VLOOKUP needed commas or semicolons.
Yet a part of her still clung to her beloved spreadsheet budgets. She had built them. They knew her. Or at least they used to—before she’d stopped updating them for a week straight.
But facts were facts: spreadsheet budgets looked cool but required constant upkeep. App-based tracking was less romantic, but it fit her lifestyle better. Like…a lot better.
Instead of entering things manually, Riley could just glance at the dashboard. Her savings goal for a “Rainy Seattle Coffee Crawl” was growing steadily thanks to a few app-recommended tweaks. She even learned she was spending more on snacks than on groceries. That felt personal.
As Riley leaned back on her couch one night, watching her app gently nudge her toward better spending habits, she finally faced the truth.
“Spreadsheet budgets,” she whispered, deleting the file with a single click, “you were too beautiful for this world.”
Now, with app-based tracking, she had clarity. She still romanticized spreadsheet budgets sometimes—like when she saw aesthetic TikToks of people budgeting to lo-fi music in perfectly clean apartments—but she knew what worked for her.
And that’s the key takeaway.
💡 Financial Real Talk:
Whether you’re using spreadsheet budgets or an app, the best budget is the one you’ll actually use. Riley learned that no amount of color coding can save you from forgetting a pizza order, but a nudge from a smart app just might.
So, are you Team Spreadsheet Budgets or Team App Tracking?
Either way, start something. Because Muffin the cat is not going to pay your rent. 🐾
