Show HN: A "what-if" budget planner app born from new-parent chaos

1 points by riario 9 hours ago

After the uncertainty of the pandemic and becoming a first-time (then two-time) parent, I realized the “monthly budget” never tells the full story. Real life is lumpy: childcare starts mid-year, service charge steps up, one-offs appear out of nowhere, and somehow the math never matches the month. I didn’t need another expense tracker, I needed a way to see the whole picture and test futures.

So I built a scenario-first planner. Instead of obsessing over last month’s transactions, you:

Map your life into a plan: recurring expenses, one-offs, income changes, goals. Duplicate your plan with one tap, tweak variables, and compare outcomes side-by-side.

Project out 60 months to see cash flow, buffers, and breaking points. Stress-test “what if” events: childcare, mortgage rate changes, a new car, parental leave, etc.

It's a bit like holding the Time Stone :P You roll time forward, branch a new timeline, replay with a tiny change, then compare the futures.

It's called "Plans.TheApp" and it's currently available for iOS on the App Store (Android to follow). The goal wasn’t every coffee, every doughnut perfect precision. It's about clarity and confidence and the ability to make decisions with a full, realistic picture.

We’re looking for blunt feedback from people who’ve felt the same mismatch between “monthly budget” and real life:

Which scenarios do you care about most? What data/visuals make a decision obvious for you? Where does the model fail (irregular bills, step-changes, seasonality)?

If this resonates, we’d love your take and your hardest edge cases.