Introduction
Honest Debt is EXAFABS' personal-finance app — a calm, AI-assisted debt payoff planner built with React Native (Expo), Convex, and Claude. It computes avalanche and snowball payoff plans, simulates "what if I paid a little more" scenarios in real time, tracks a Debt Stress Index alongside the numbers, and explains every recommendation in plain English.
Its defining design decision is in the name: honesty about what a debt app should and shouldn't do. Honest Debt never asks for account numbers, never connects to a bank, and never moves money. Everything it knows, you typed in yourself.
The Problem: Debt Tools That Demand Too Much
Most debt apps open with a bank-login screen. That's a real barrier for the people who need help most: handing over credentials while already anxious about money feels wrong — and it is unnecessary for planning. The math of getting out of debt needs five numbers per debt, not read access to your transaction history.
The second problem is opacity. Payoff calculators output a date and a dollar figure with no explanation. If you don't understand why the avalanche method saves you interest, you won't trust it enough to stick with it for three years.
Honest by Design
- No account numbers, ever. You enter a nickname, balance, APR, and minimum payment per debt. That's all the app wants.
- No money movement. Honest Debt is guidance, not a payment rail. Every payment stays between you and your creditor.
- Guidance, not advice. The app is explicit that it provides educational estimates, not licensed financial advice — and repeats that disclaimer where it matters.
- Feelings are data too. A Debt Stress Index tracks how you're doing emotionally, because debt payoff is a years-long behavior problem, not a spreadsheet problem.
What the App Does
- Guided onboarding — a conversational intake that builds your debt picture in about two minutes, localized currency included.
- Payoff plan — avalanche (highest APR first) or snowball (smallest balance first), with month-by-month timeline, interest saved, and debt-free date.
- Scenario simulator — drag a slider to see what an extra payment per week or month does to your debt-free date, instantly recomputed server-side.
- Financial health score — a single calm number summarizing utilization, momentum, and progress.
- Plain-English explanations — Claude turns the engine's output into short, honest explanations of what your plan does and why.
- Reminders — optional payment-day notifications that never put balances on your lock screen.
Tech Stack
- Mobile: React Native + Expo (iOS first), expo-router, a custom "Light Bookish" design system
- Backend: Convex — real-time database, serverless functions, and a deterministic payoff engine
- Auth: Clerk — email/password, Google, and Apple sign-in
- AI: Claude (Anthropic) for plan explanations, with pseudonymized context only
- Billing: RevenueCat + App Store subscriptions (Pro: monthly or yearly)
- Observability: Sentry for errors, PostHog (EU) for anonymous product analytics
Privacy & Trust
Because the app holds self-reported financial data, its privacy posture is deliberately conservative: no bank credentials exist anywhere in the system, AI calls carry pseudonymized context only, notification content never includes balances, and account deletion is self-serve. Read the full Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and Refund Policy.
What's Next
On the roadmap: richer progress recaps, smarter check-ins that adapt to your stress trend, exportable payoff plans, and Android. Honest Debt ships first on iOS via the App Store.
Honest Debt · guidance, not advice · no money movement