A Personal Journey from Excel Sheets to Financial Freedom
Fifteen years ago, I was a nervous new grad starting my career at a Big Four accounting firm in downtown Toronto. The housing market was still within reach for young professionals, and I had my eye on my first home. But staring at that mortgage pre-approval letter, I felt something between excitement and terror. How could I possibly take on a mortgage that dwarfed my entry-level salary?
So I did what any finance nerd would do — I opened Excel.
Every Saturday morning, coffee in hand, I'd update my spreadsheet. Not to restrict my life or deny myself that weekend latte, but to understand one simple thing: Where is my money going, and where is it headed? That clarity gave me confidence to take the leap. I bought that first home, and more importantly, I could sleep at night knowing exactly how I'd make each payment.
Your money shouldn't restrict your lifestyle, it should enable the life you want to live.
Most budgeting apps get this backwards. They want you to categorize every penny, set rigid limits, and feel guilty about small pleasures. They demand your banking credentials, creating anxiety about security while overwhelming you with noise that doesn't matter.
I never restricted my spending into tiny categories. I never denied myself small joys to save an extra dollar. Instead, I maintained rough buckets, enough to gauge if I was on track, while focusing on the big picture: cash flow projections that let me make confident decisions about mortgages, investments, and major life changes.
If I didn't have enough cash for something I wanted, I didn't deprive myself. I figured out sustainable ways to get there.
For over a decade, this system worked perfectly. Managing multi-million dollar portfolios for public corporations during the week, managing my own finances on Saturday mornings - the irony wasn't lost on me. I had sophisticated tools for corporate finance but was still wrestling with Excel formulas for my personal budget tracking.
Then came marriage, kids, and the beautiful chaos of family life. Suddenly, it wasn't just my accounts anymore. It was joint checking, joint savings, my partner's credit cards, my credit cards, the RESP for the kids, and somehow keeping track of whose card paid for groceries versus who covered daycare. Expense tracking multiplied exponentially when "my money" became "our money" and every transaction needed context: Was that e-transfer for shared expenses or personal spending? Which account should cover the mortgage this month to optimize our cash flow?
That first year as a new parent? What used to take half an hour on a Saturday morning now stretched into hours. My carefully maintained Excel system started showing cracks. Broken formulas, missed payments, reconciling multiple credit card statements while sleep-deprived, and the realization that I needed my financial tracking system to work with my life, not demand constant maintenance. The sophisticated budgeting method that once gave me peace of mind was now a source of stress, stealing precious time from family.
That's when I decided to formalize what I'd been doing all along. Sonnet Money isn't just another budgeting app — it's the digitization of a philosophy that's guided my financial life for fifteen years. Like a sonnet provides poets with structure to express their imagination, we provide you the framework to compose your financial story, with intelligent tax planning coming next to help you see your true cash position even more clearly.
We built it for people like us:
Today, Toronto's housing market tells a different story than it did fifteen years ago. Young professionals face challenges I couldn't have imagined. Parents juggle responsibilities that leave no time for spreadsheet maintenance.
But the need for financial clarity? That's more critical than ever.
Sonnet Money is my invitation to you — whether you're that nervous young professional staring at your first major financial decision, or the overwhelmed parent trying to plan for your family's future. You don't need to spend years building your own system. You don't need to sacrifice your Saturday mornings. And you definitely don't need to compromise your privacy or get lost in unnecessary complexity.
We measure what matters: Where your money is going. Where it's headed. What's possible.
No guilt. No restrictions. No compromised privacy. Just clarity that enables the life you want to live.
Because after fifteen years of Saturday mornings, I've learned that financial confidence doesn't come from limiting your life, it comes from understanding your possibilities and making informed choices to get there.
Your financial story is waiting to be written. Let's make it a good one.
Built by a Big 4 CPA, CA who has been where you are,
and designed for people who want something better.