Why I built another Personal Finance Application
and why I called it Titmice
Titmice is a small songbird from North America that stores food in winter for later use.
Many of my friends were surprised when I told them I was building an app to track expenses. I could see the flash of “wut, another one?” micro-expression displayed across their face.
If you have the same question floating in your mind right now, please indulge me for a couple of minutes while I explain my motivation for building Titmice.
How it started
The beginning of Titmice had little to do with expenses. I was starting my 2 month remote working trip in Japan and since I will be living alone for the most parts, I decided to try a little experiment — calories tracking.
My weight had always hovered around 76–79kg for the past 5 years or more. I tried a few diet plans like keto and it worked to a certain extent. However, I had to make quite a bit of exception to my daily life to accommodate the diet.
Pure Math
The great thing about calories tracking is that gaining/losing weight is actually pure math. You gain weight when you take in more calories than your body can burn and vice versa.
I downloaded an app call Loseit! and began my calories-tracking life. The app tells me how much calories to take in daily, in order to hit my target weight. I wasn’t too serious about it during the first week. But as I started seeing the numbers on the weighing scale dropped, I stepped up my tracking game.
Things were working out smoothly. I could eat whatever I want, as long as I kept within my calories limit, and my weight was decreasing.
Towards the end of my stay in Japan, I was able to relate food in terms of calories at ease. I went back to Singapore, weighing at 71kg.
I had a lot of good food in Japan and I don’t feel guilty for eating supper. The best part — I lost weight and I felt good doing it.
Fixing my overspending habits
When I returned to Singapore, I was eager to apply this concept to another aspect of my life — spending. Just like food, I did not had a very clear insights to what I have been spending on, which leads to my overspending habits.
I wanted to build an app that tells me how much to spend but more importantly, how much more I can afford to spend. So I went to the drawing board and planned the Minimal Viable Product (MVP).
Features for the MVP
- Given a budget and duration, the app must be able to tell you much you can spend daily.
- The app can track expenses with categorization.
- Daily leftover budget will be rolled over into a place called “chest”. The chest will be the key in letting you know how much more you can spend.
Finding the name
So with these three simple feature, I went ahead and started looking for a name to the product. “Titmice” immediately caught my eyes and things never looked back.
Along the way, I added more advanced features (machine learning etc.)to Titmice but that’s another story for another day.
I will be documenting my journey in building Titmice in this publication. If you want to be informed of any updates, remember to follow this publication and also give this article a “♥︎” on your way out.
Titmice is currently in beta mode and is looking for testers. You can get your beta access to it here: https://www.titmiceapp.com/.
