Keep your daily streak going.
A budget mostly goes wrong in the days nobody looks at it. Spense's daily streak is a small reason to look: the first time you open the app each day, a sheet slides up with how many days in a row you've checked in and what changed since yesterday. Reading it takes a few seconds, and on a busy day that's the whole check-in. Missing a day never costs you anything you've earned.
Open Spense once a day
Open Spense and let the Home tab load. That's what counts the day: Spense notes the date when Home loads, and again whenever you come back to the app after leaving it, and the first one each day counts. The day is your phone's own calendar day, so a check-in at 11pm counts for today wherever you are. Opening the app five times in one day still counts as one day.
The sheet doesn't appear on the day you start using Spense. A one-day streak right after setup isn't news, so the first sheet comes on your second day.
Read the day’s sheet
What the sheet holds depends on how you budget. You picked Auto or Classic when you set up Spense, and Classic splits again by whether any account is linked:
- Auto: The streak card (or, when Spense categorized something or you earned a badge or level since your last visit, a streak strip at the top of Your Recent Updates). Buttons: Keep swimming (Let’s go after a missed day), or OK on Your Recent Updates.
- Classic, with a linked bank or card: Since yesterday: the streak, every transaction ready for review with its suggested category, and your plan. Buttons: Review N transactions or Later, or just All caught up when nothing is waiting.
- Classic, with only accounts you track by hand: The fish asking if you have anything to log, the streak, what you last logged, and your plan. Buttons: Log a transaction, or All caught up.
On a quiet day in Auto, the sheet is just the fish (“12 days in a row. The pond likes having you around.”) and the DAILY STREAK card: the big number, days in a row 🔥, your best streak in the corner, and a seven-step track such as Day 5 of week 2 with 2 more days → +2 💧 beside it. Under it Spense says Nothing new since yesterday: every transaction is already sorted.
In Classic with a bank, the sheet is titled Since yesterday. READY FOR REVIEW lists every transaction waiting for you, each with the category the review card will suggest, and YOUR PLAN shows your Ready to Assign with an Assign button, then a line for anything that needs money, such as “Dining Out needs a $24 top-up” or “Gas needs $40 to reach its target”. When nothing is waiting for review, the review card is left out. With only hand-tracked accounts, LAST LOGGED lists what you entered on your most recent day, and the plan says how much is still ready to assign (Every dollar has a job at zero, or how much more you've assigned than you have), the same top-up lines, and which category is closest to running out.
Act on it, or close it
Every button either closes the sheet or takes you straight to the thing it names:
- Review N transactions opens the review card, the same one you'd get from the Spending tab. Our review guide covers it.
- Assign takes you to the Budget tab. In the same sheet, tapping a top-up line that names one category opens the assign sheet for that category instead.
- Log a transaction opens the New transaction sheet.
- Keep swimming, Let's go, OK, Later and All caught up just close it. Nothing changes in your budget.
The seventh day in a row completes a streak week, and it adds +2 💧 to your pond in every mode. Those drops are yours for good. In Auto, that day's sheet says so with STREAK WEEK COMPLETE. The first time you reach seven days, you also unlock the Week in the Water badge, then Month in the Water at 30 days and Season in the Water at 90.
A daily look keeps the month honest; a monthly money review is the longer version of the same habit. When the sheet says a category needs a top-up, our guide to moving money between categories covers it.