u/divided_author

Bit of a long one, sorry.

I’ve worked for myself for a while now, and the thing that never got easier was how in the dark I felt about my own money. When you’re employed, a fixed salary lands and you roughly know where you are. Self-employed, it’s the opposite — income lumps in unevenly, expenses come out at random, and there’s always tax lurking somewhere in the future that isn’t really yours to spend. Some months I felt flush and overspent; others I was scraping, and I could never tell which kind of month I was actually in until it was too late.

I’ve got a background in software, so after one too many of these I started building the thing I wished existed. Not a tax app, not another budgeting app — just one place that tells you the truth about your money when your income isn’t a tidy salary:

**•**	Connects to your bank (read-only — it can only see your money, never move it)  
**•**	Shows what’s genuinely **safe to spend today**, once it accounts for what’s coming — bills, expenses, the quiet weeks  
**•**	Works out your **real income** after costs, not just what landed in the account  
**•**	Quietly **sets aside your tax** as you earn, so Self Assessment isn’t a January ambush  
**•**	Flags **money leaks** — forgotten subscriptions, sneaky price rises, double charges

The idea is one honest number instead of five apps and a gut feeling. It’s called Fettle. It’s early — I’m building it now and running a waitlist while I talk to actual self-employed people, to make sure I’m solving the real problem and not just the one in my own head.

That’s where I’d really value this community. A few honest questions:

**1.**	What’s the part that actually stresses you — the irregular income, the tax, not knowing what’s safe to spend, chasing expenses, or something else entirely?  
**2.**	Would you trust an app with read-only access to your bank, or is that a hard no?  
**3.**	If you’ve already got a system that works for you, what is it? Genuinely want to know what people land on.

Not selling anything today — it’s not even fully built, and honestly the feedback’s worth more to me right now than signups. Happy to answer anything about how it works.

Full disclosure, I’m the founder. If you want to follow along or join the waitlist, it’s at fettlemoney.co.uk — but no pressure, the questions above are what I’m really here for.

1. The app payout isn’t your income. It’s revenue. Your real income is what’s left after costs.

2. Take fuel off first. Track it for one week and you’ll probably be surprised — for a lot of drivers it’s 15–20% of the payout straight off the top.

3. Set aside tax as you earn, not in January. As a rough guide, putting by 20–30% of profit for Income Tax + National Insurance keeps you covered for most earnings levels (your exact rate depends on total income and the personal allowance). The trick is moving it to a separate pot the moment you’re paid, so you never see it as “spendable.”

4. What’s left is your real take-home. That’s the number to budget on — not the flashy app total.

The thing that catches most people out isn’t the tax rate — it’s that they spend the tax money before they realise it was owed. Separating it out the day you earn it fixes 90% of the January panic.

Curious how others here handle it — do you set aside a fixed % or wait and see? And has anyone found a system that actually sticks?