Money Leak Radar

Catch money leaks before they renew. Track, act, and watch your monthly savings grow automatically.

Comment

Inspiration

Most money apps assume you have time, discipline, and a spreadsheet habit. Real life, especially for busy parents, doesn’t work that way. Money quietly leaks out through forgotten subscriptions, bills that crept up over the years, and small daily habits no one ever questions. By the time you notice, you’ve lost hundreds or thousands without a clear moment to point to.

We wanted to build something different: a financial tool that meets people where they actually are. No budgets, no bank connections, no shame. Just a clear picture of where the leaks are, and one small action you can take today to start fixing it.

The name says it all: Money Leak Radar finds the leaks. 5-Minute Money Wins builds the habit to fix them.

What It Does

The app has two complementary pillars:

Money Leak Radar

Money Leak Radar lets you track recurring spending leaks — subscriptions, bills, and habits — with their renewal dates.

Before each charge hits, you get an alert and a choice:

  • Fix It (cancel, negotiate, or replace)
  • Snooze 2 days
  • Keep It (conscious decision, not passive drift)

Every fixed leak gets a celebration moment. Every action is logged to a history timeline per leak so you can see your progress over time.

5-Minute Money Wins

5-Minute Money Wins delivers one practical, actionable money task per day, completable in under five minutes.

Examples:

  • Cancel a subscription
  • Swap one grocery item for the store brand
  • Call your internet provider

Small actions, compounding over time.

Learn Section

The Learn section covers six short lessons on money leak basics:

  • The subscription trap
  • How to negotiate any bill
  • Breaking expensive daily habits

Full completion tracking is included.

Pro Features

Pro subscribers unlock:

  • AI-personalized daily wins (powered by Gemini, come later)
  • Fix scripts tailored to each leak type

  • Five premium multi-day challenges:

    • Cut Bills in 14 Days
    • Subscription Detox
    • Grocery Budget Reboot
    • School Cost Reset
    • Side Income Starter

How We Built It

  • Framework: React Native with Expo SDK 54 and Expo Router (file-based navigation)
  • Backend: Firebase Auth (email/password) + Cloud Firestore for persistence
  • Notifications: Expo Notifications + FCM — scheduled 3 days before, 1 day before, and day-of each leak renewal
  • Subscriptions: RevenueCat — weekly ($2.99/week) and annual ($39.99/year) Pro tiers with 7-day free trial
  • AI: Google Gemini Flash via Firebase Cloud Functions for personalized daily win generation
  • State: React Context + AsyncStorage for offline resilience; Firestore as source of truth
  • Language: TypeScript throughout

Key Technical Decisions

  • Optimistic UI updates everywhere — leak actions (fix, snooze, keep) update local state immediately so the UI never feels blocked by network latency
  • iOS date picker fix — display="inline" inside a white-background Modal to prevent invisible calendar text on iOS 14/15
  • Reactivation without duplicates — reactivating a fixed leak updates the existing Firestore document rather than creating a new record, preserving full history
  • Celebration animation — spring-physics card pop-in with 6 staggered confetti particles using React Native's Animated API

Challenges We Ran Into

Silent Failures Blocking UX

Our first implementation of "Fix It" awaited a full Firestore write before showing the celebration animation. On a slow connection, the button appeared to do nothing.

The fix was to trigger the animation optimistically and sync to Firestore in the background.

iOS Date Picker Visibility

On iOS 14 and 15, the inline DateTimePicker component renders day numbers in a color that’s invisible against a transparent background — a platform quirk.

Wrapping it inside a Modal with an explicit white background resolved it.

Designing the Right Emotional Tone

Financial apps often trigger anxiety. Every copy decision — the celebration on fixing a leak, the “👍 Kept — see you next cycle” message when you choose to keep a subscription — was deliberate.

No shaming. No “you should have done this months ago.”

Engagement Beyond the First Session

A daily wins app is only as good as its reason to open it tomorrow.

We solved this by adding the Leak Radar renewal alert loop — users naturally return when a subscription is about to renew, creating a pull that doesn’t depend on artificial streak mechanics.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

  • A complete, production-ready app: auth, onboarding, two product pillars, Pro subscription, push notifications, AI personalization, and App Store preparation — all in one sprint
  • The Fix It celebration — spring-animated card pop-in with confetti that genuinely feels earned, not hollow
  • A history timeline per leak (created → snoozed → fixed → reactivated) that makes the user’s progress visible and real
  • Reactivation without duplicates — a simple UX decision (pick a new date, no new record) that keeps the data model clean and history intact
  • A Learn section with real, app-aligned money content — six modules rewritten from scratch to directly support the product’s purpose

What We Learned

  • Optimistic UI is non-negotiable for mobile. Users interpret any delay as the app not working. Update the UI first; sync to the server in the background.
  • Two complementary loops beat one. Daily wins alone run dry. Renewal alerts alone feel passive. Together they create a high-frequency reason to open the app that neither achieves alone.
  • Emotional safety is a feature. The tone of every message — “Every fixed leak adds up 💚” — is as important as the functionality. For an audience that already feels anxious about money, the wrong word at the wrong moment breaks trust permanently.
  • Constraints ship products. No bank connections, no complex budgeting logic — just dates, amounts, and daily actions. The constraint forced clarity.

What’s Next

  • TestFlight launch and internal beta with target users (busy parents)
  • Leak limit on free tier (3 active leaks) to create a natural Pro conversion moment after users see real savings
  • Impulse Interceptor traction analysis — the feature is built (impulse.tsx); we want to validate measurable behavior change before deeper investment
  • Savings Goal Sprint (Model 4) — connect the Leak Radar and win library to a concrete user goal (“save $500 by December”) if retention data shows users need a longer-term anchor
  • Widget support for one-tap impulse intercept from the home screen
  • AI Google Gemini Flash via Firebase Cloud Functions for personalized daily win generation

Built With

Share this project:

Updates