Why I built Saldo

Hi, I'm Milica.

In 2022 I was completely broke. I had money coming in every month and I still couldn't tell you where it went. My bank app showed me a long list of payments, and none of it added up to a picture.

So I started doing it by hand. Every week I took my bank statements, went through every line and put each one in a box: food, bills, the car, subscriptions, going out. It took me at least an hour a week. It was boring and slow, and it was the first time I actually saw my money.

It wasn't a pretty picture: far too much was going on food, and nothing at all into savings. Once I could see it, I could change it. I started small: I skipped one coffee a week and moved those 450 dinars into savings. It's a small amount, but for the first time savings got their own place instead of whatever was left over. Everything changed from there.

Doing it by hand took me a few hours every month, so I built myself a small program that reads my statements and sorts them for me. That program became Saldo. It works with any bank in Serbia, it reads the statements you already get, and in a few minutes it shows you what used to take me an hour every week.

I built it because I remember what 2022 felt like, and I don't think anyone should feel that lost about their own money. If Saldo helps even a few people get there faster than I did, it was worth building.