BuyMeNot tracks the purchases you resist and projects what that money could grow into if invested in a broad index fund instead. Turn impulse control into compound growth. Hypothetical "what if" projections — not financial advice, no real money moves.
Hey Product Fam 👋
I built BuyMeNot because of a small, stupid feeling: I'd talk myself out
of buying something, feel briefly good about it, and then... nothing. The
money just quietly sat there and got spent on something else later.
Every finance app I tried tracks what you spend. None of them had any
concept of what you *didn't* spend — which is strange, because that's the
decision you actually want to reinforce.
So BuyMeNot tracks the other side. You log the thing you decided not to
buy, and it shows what that money could be worth if you'd invested it
instead. A $6 coffee you skipped isn't $6. Over 30 years it's a different
number, and seeing that number is weirdly motivating.
How it evolved: I built the mobile app first, and then noticed the flaw.
Resisting the purchase was never the hard part — remembering to log it
was. And most impulse buying happens in a browser tab, not on your phone.
So I built a Chrome extension: you're on a product page, you decide not to
buy it, you click the toolbar icon and the name and price are already
filled in. One more click and it's logged.
One thing I was deliberate about: nothing is actually invested, and the app
never pretends otherwise. The projections are hypothetical, at a rate you
set yourself. It's a motivation tool, not financial advice.
It's free on iPhone, Android, web, and now Chrome.