← Back to paychq

See what arrives in Sarah's inbox every Sunday.

Sarah (32, dental assistant, single mom of 2, Las Vegas) has been a paychq subscriber for 6 weeks. This is her dashboard today and the email she got last Sunday — the actual artifacts the production pipeline produced, nothing hand-edited.

Sarah's dashboard

as of Fri, May 22
Next 61 days, projected balance
May 22Jun 1Jul 1
green > $300 bufferyellow $50–$300red < $50thresholds: auto-scaled from your 6-week history
Today (Fri, May 22)
$214.00
of buffer until your next payday
Next payday (Fri, Jun 5)
$238.00
projected buffer after the deposit
Payday after (Fri, Jun 19)
$198.00
projected buffer two cycles out

This week

Delay the Costco run until after rent posts on Tuesday Jun 2.

Buffer on Fri, May 29 goes from $40.00 to $180.00 if you defer the Costco run to Sat, Jun 6.

Coming up that matters

  • Sun, Jun 14 — projected $52.00 buffer (car insurance ($145 on Jun 15)).
  • Mon, Jul 13 — projected $48.00 buffer (same shape, next cycle).

Reply to any Sunday email with anything that changed — a paycheck, a bill, a one-off expense — and the projection updates within a minute.

Sarah's Sunday email (last week)

From paychq@forage.bot · subject: paychq: you're good til Friday, but watch Wednesday Jun 14

Hi Sarah,

You're good until Friday. Buffer today: $214. Buffer Friday after the $1,180 paycheck: $1,322.

Next payday (Jun 5) projects $238 of buffer. That's a healthy two weeks if nothing changes.

One thing for this week: rent posts Tuesday Jun 2, and the Costco run you usually do on Saturday is what made last cycle tight. If you push Costco to Sunday Jun 6 (after the next paycheck lands), you'll have $180 of buffer Friday instead of $40.

One thing for the next cycle: Sunday Jun 14 projects $52 of buffer because car insurance ($145) hits the following day. You won't feel it now, but two Sundays from today I'll flag it again with a specific suggestion.

Reply with anything that changed since this morning — a paycheck, a bill, a one-off expense — and the projection updates. Free-form is fine: "$1,210 paycheck Friday and paid $52 at Trader Joe's" works.

— paychq

What happens when Sarah replies

Sarah types back in plain English. paychq parses the reply and within about a minute sends a confirmation that names what it logged and how her buffer changed.

Sarah's reply:

“$1,210 paycheck Friday (extra tips this week) and paid $52 at Trader Joe's yesterday”

paychq's confirmation (~1 minute later):

Got it. Two updates:

  + Friday May 23 paycheck: $1,180 → $1,210 (logged $30 of tips)
  − May 23 Trader Joe's expense: $52 (logged as variable spend)

Your Friday buffer just went from $1,322 to $1,300.
Your next-payday (Jun 5) buffer just went from $238 to $216.

— paychq
Start — $4/moSee how it works