I built the budget I could finally stick to.
Oakfold is made by Myles Lalmond, a postal mechanic by day and a programmer by night, in Taylors, South Carolina.
Spreadsheets, subscriptions, and quitting.
Honestly, I hated spreadsheets.
I didn't like working in Google Sheets in a browser, and I didn't want to pay for Excel. The sheets broke all the time, and I couldn't change the layout without breaking them.
Worse, I couldn't stick with them. I'd find a spreadsheet budget that seemed to have every feature I thought I needed, get overwhelmed, and quit budgeting after a month or two. Then I'd try again with another one.
I looked at subscription apps like Monarch and Origin. I quickly realized I'd be paying a lot of money for another subscription to keep up with, and paying a premium to hand my real financial information to bank syncing services like Plaid. And all the while, I'd be getting a fake sense of financial responsibility from finance that ran itself. The app would know where my money went. I wouldn't.
So I built what I wanted instead: a budget that does the spreadsheet's math without the spreadsheet breaking, keeps my data on my own computer, and leaves me the one writing it down. That last part turned out to be the point. Writing it down is what made it stick.
Myles LalmondMaker of Oakfold
Three things I won't trade away
You hold the pen
Every transaction is one you entered or approved. Regular bills post on schedule for you to confirm, and a scanned statement catches what you missed, but you decide what goes in your history.
Your money stays yours
Your data lives on your computer. Oakfold never asks for your bank login, doesn't sell your data, and doesn't show you ads. Cloud sync is there if you want it, and off if you don't.
Budgeting shouldn't cost a subscription
Every budgeting tool is free for good. Core, at $4.99 a month, pays for what costs money to run: the AI, the cloud and your household.
Who Oakfold is for, and who it isn't
A good fit if you
- Have tried spreadsheets and found them tedious or fragile.
- Find the big budgeting apps overwhelming, or don't want another subscription.
- Manage money with a partner or family.
- Are paying down debt and want a clear plan and a payoff date.
- Are saving toward something: an emergency fund, a big purchase, a home.
- Would rather not link your bank logins to a third party.
Not the right fit if you
- Want transactions to arrive automatically from your bank.
- Need to budget on your phone. Oakfold runs on Windows and Mac computers for now.
- Need business accounting or invoicing.
Comparing options? Here's how Oakfold compares to YNAB, Monarch, Copilot and the top budget spreadsheets, including where they fit better.
Questions, ideas, or a bug? Write to me.
A real person reads and answers every message. That person is me, usually within a couple of days.
Oakfold is not a bank or a financial advisor.