Spew is designed to be useful in 10 minutes. This guide walks you through your first session so you’re not clicking around wondering what to do first.
Before you start
You’ll want these handy:
- Your last 1-2 months of bills or a quick mental list of what you pay monthly
- The bank or credit card you want to connect (optional, but recommended)
- Your paystub (optional, helps set up income accurately)
Step 1: Sign up or start the demo
Two ways to start:
- Try the demo: go to spew.money and click “Live Demo.” Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing saved. Great for kicking the tires.
- Sign up for trial: 30 days free, no credit card required. Creates an account so your data persists.
For this guide, we’ll assume you signed up.
Step 2: Complete onboarding
After signup, Spew walks you through a 7-category guided setup:
- Housing & Utilities (rent/mortgage, electricity, water, internet)
- Living Expenses (groceries, insurance, car, phone)
- Debts (credit cards, student loans)
- Subscriptions (Netflix, Spotify, software)
- Income (salary, side hustle income)
- Savings (emergency fund, vacation)
- Investments (401k, IRA contributions)
For each category:
- Click a pre-populated suggestion to add it quickly, OR
- Type a custom name
- Enter the amount and due date
- Click Add
Don’t worry about being perfect. You can edit everything later. The goal is to get roughly 70-80% of your recurring money on the board in under 10 minutes.
Step 3: Pick a theme
At the end of onboarding, you’ll pick a color theme. Spew has 10 themes from classic blue to terminal-dark hacker mode. Pick whatever fits your vibe. You can change it anytime via the user icon in the top right.
Step 4: Land on the Dashboard
Once setup is done, you land on the Dashboard. Here you see:
- Net Flow: your total estimated income minus total estimated expenses. Positive = building, negative = burning.
- Top spending categories
- This month’s progress
- Upcoming bills
- Recent trends
If your Net Flow looks wrong, click any bill name to edit the amount or category. Changes propagate to the Dashboard immediately.
Step 5: Explore the Monthly View
Click “Monthly View” in the top nav. This is the heart of the app.
You’ll see:
- Your bills listed down the left
- 12 months across the top
- A cell for each bill × month intersection
This is your bill grid. Every cell can show a paid amount (green), an unpaid bill (yellow if overdue), or a critical overdue (red).
Click any cell to log a payment. Press Enter to save, Esc to cancel.
Step 6: Connect your bank (optional but recommended)
Click “Data Repo” in the nav. Scroll down to “Bank Sync.” Click “Connect a Bank.”
Spew uses Plaid for secure, read-only bank connections. When you connect:
- Spew pulls the last 24 months of transactions
- Charges auto-match to your existing bills in the grid
- Subscriptions get auto-detected
- Smart tagging starts learning your categorization patterns
This is where Spew gets really useful. Within 2 minutes of connecting, most of your month is already logged.
Step 7: Check your forecast
Click “Forecast” in the nav. You’ll see a 24-month projection of your cash flow based on the bills and income you entered.
Drag the sliders to model “what if”:
- What if I get a raise in June?
- What if I move to a cheaper apartment?
- What if I add a $400 car payment?
- What if I add a side hustle?
The forecast updates live. This is where Spew pays for itself: you can see your financial trajectory and test decisions before making them.
Step 8: Set up To-Do’s
Click “To-Do’s” in the nav. This is your financial task list:
- Pay off credit card
- Call insurance
- Set up Roth IRA
- Cancel unused gym
Add 3-5 financial to-do’s that come out of what you just saw on the Dashboard.
What to do next
After your first 10 minutes, here’s the highest-leverage follow-up:
- Connect your bank if you haven’t already: Bank sync setup guide
- Master the monthly grid: Grid tips and tricks
- Run a first forecast scenario: Forecast how-to
- Audit your subscriptions: Subscription cleanup guide
When you’re stuck
- The app looks empty: you haven’t added bills yet. Go to Monthly View > click “Add Bill” or use Data Repo for bulk import.
- Numbers look wrong: click the bill name to edit the expected amount. Click a month cell to log the actual payment.
- Can’t connect bank: most major US banks work. If yours doesn’t, you can still manually track bills.
- Want to start over: Account > Clear all data (careful, this is irreversible).
Why this works
Most budget apps either make you set everything up perfectly before you see value, or they dump transactions on you with no structure. Spew is in between: guided onboarding gets you set up fast, then bank sync does the ongoing work.
The 10 minutes you spend today saves hours every month.