The chip next to your number
Your expenditure estimate carries a label, shown under the heading Accuracy, that reflects one thing: how much recent logging backs it up.
- Calibrating — the estimate is usually still the setup calculation. The algorithm needs seven complete logged days inside its three-week window before it produces a number of its own, so at this stage it is normally holding the figure your setup produced and waiting. (The chip counts a shorter window than the estimate does, so it can lag a day or two behind a number that has started to move — see below.)
- Refining — there's real data flowing in and the estimate is actively converging on your actual burn. Expect it to move during this stage; that's it working.
- Refined — your recent weeks are consistently logged and the estimate is resting on solid evidence. Changes from here tend to be small and meaningful.
- Paused — updates are on hold because recent data is too thin; the last confidence level is preserved underneath (see why your expenditure is paused).
While the chip reads Calibrating, the change figures — how your expenditure moved over the last 3, 7, 14, 30 and 90 days — are hidden rather than shown as zeroes. There is nothing to compare against yet.
How to move up
Confidence is a direct function of logged days in the recent couple of weeks. Seven logged days in the last fourteen takes you from Calibrating into Refining. Fourteen reaches Refined.
The chip and the estimate answer to two different windows, which is why they can disagree for a few days. The estimate starts measuring once seven logged days sit inside its three-week window; the chip moves once seven sit inside the last fourteen. Log four days this week and three a fortnight ago and you get the first without the second — the number is already moving while the chip still reads Calibrating. There's no trick beyond the two habits the whole system runs on: log your days, weigh in regularly.
Why it matters
The weekly check-in leans on the expenditure estimate to suggest new targets. The higher the confidence, the more those suggestions are grounded in your reality rather than a formula — early on, treat suggestions as directionally right; at Refined, they're as personal as this gets.
Your first three weeks walks through this whole period in order. While the estimate is still calibrating, the check-in will not propose a target change at all: it shows your current targets unchanged and tells you it is still learning. That is deliberate, not a bug. See apply or keep your targets.
One wording note, in case you spot it: the check-in screen labels the third stage Confident rather than Refined. It is the same stage, counted the same way.