Most budgeting tools work like this: you set a budget, spend throughout the month, and then at the end you check a dashboard and discover you overspent. It's like weighing yourself after you've already eaten the whole cake.
Alerts at the right moments
Tabby takes a different approach. Instead of waiting for you to check a dashboard, we text you at three critical thresholds:
- 50%, the halfway check. "You've used half your Food budget. $250 left for the rest of the month." This is informational. No panic, just awareness.
- 75%, the warning. "You've hit 75% of your Shopping budget with 10 days left." Now you can consciously decide: slow down or accept going over.
- 100%, the line. "You've exceeded your Fun budget." No judgment, just facts. Some months you'll go over, and that's fine. But at least you chose to.
Why these specific numbers?
We tested different thresholds: 25%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 90%. Here's what we found:
- Alerts below 50% felt premature. "You've spent 25% of your budget" doesn't mean anything when you're barely into the month.
- Alerts at 90% came too late. By then, you've basically already decided to overspend.
- 50-75-100 hits the sweet spot: early enough to adjust, spaced enough not to be annoying, and clear enough to act on.
The halfway check
One feature we're particularly proud of is the halfway check. When you log an expense that pushes a category past 50%, Tabby mentions it right there in the confirmation message, not as a separate alert, but woven into the flow.
"Logged $150 omakase dinner → Food. You're at 67% of your Food budget ($333 of $500). $166 left for the rest of the month."
You see it, internalize it, and move on. No extra notification, no dashboard visit needed. The awareness happens at the moment of spending, exactly when it matters most.