In 3 months, I pulled our ad budget variance back in line. The change was a 10-minute morning check-in: a Google Sheets tracker, yesterday’s Amex export, and a quick forecast against plan. I sort spend into three buckets — media, creative, tools — and let a simple SUMIFS flag anything drifting more than 3.5% from the weekly plan. It’s not fancy, but that tiny daily loop keeps me honest about what’s committed vs what’s truly free to reallocate. Last Tuesday, a $219 testing-tool auto-renew popped up at 7:40 a.m. If I’d missed it, the tools line would’ve ended the month $400 over. I paused the extra seat, pushed the renewal to the 1st, and moved $300 to paid social, which was pacing under by 2–3%. Same story with media: two ad sets were nibbling past cap; trimming bids freed $1,100 for a weekend promo without touching the total budget.