tb
TaxBack
iPhone · out 6 october

Your brain isn't bad with money.

There is money that leaves your account while you are thinking about something else. A free trial you meant to cancel in April. The third charger, because you could not find the first two. An entire tub of protein powder, bought for the version of you who was going to start running.

TaxBack is where you write that down. That is mostly it.

Tell me when it's out →

adhd tax /noun/

Money that goes while your attention is elsewhere. Everyone does it a bit. ADHD does it more often, and more expensively, and then charges you again in shame afterwards.

Some of these are going to be yours.

You already know you do it. Knowing has never been the hard part.

Subscriptions

The free trial

You meant to cancel it in April.

Groceries

The optimism shop

The spinach knew before you did.

Impulse

The 2am buy

It made complete sense at 2am.

Hyperfixation

The eleven-day hobby

The wool is still in the crates.

Returns

The parcel by the door

The return window closed. The parcel stayed.

Late fees

The one you swiped away

You had the money. You had the app open. Anyway.

The bit that finally worked on me

When a hyperfixation shows up it brings a whole new personality with it, and that personality has already spent the money. In your head it is gone. So on the odd occasion you close the tab, it does not feel like restraint. It feels like somebody just handed you sixty quid.

You can log that here. It is a small thing and it is weirdly the reason I still open it.

Logging a slip counts the same as logging a win. Noticing is the hard part, so noticing is what gets the points.

What it is, and what it really is not

Every budgeting app I downloaded promised to sort my finances out. I deleted all of them. This one is not going to sort your finances out either, and I would rather say that on the homepage than have you find out in week two.

What TaxBack is

  • Somewhere to write down the money that got away
  • Every subscription you forgot about, in one list
  • A way to count the things you nearly bought and didn't
  • Yours only. Nothing leaves your phone, there is no account

What it isn't

  • A budget. There are no rules here to fall behind on
  • Connected to your bank, now or ever
  • A streak you can break. There are none, on purpose
  • A fix for ADHD, or your money, or your life
  • Ever going to say the word "overspent" to you

It comes out on 6 October

Which is my birthday, which was either very good planning or very ADHD planning and I genuinely cannot tell you which. Leave your email and I will send you the link on the day, plus one before that when pre-orders open. Two emails. That is the whole plan.