Generally looks like a promising idea even in a deeply-competitive space, however the "selling point" of having pie charts to summarize your monthly spending does absolutely nothing for me - I know, banks etc use them in their marketing of "modern" online tools too, so they look kind of cool, but in practice for decision making about personal finance I find them absolutely useless. What I need to know on a regular basis, during a given month and at the end of the month, is: how much have I spent in general, compared with how much I planned to spend? Am I overspending in a particular category that I need to correct to keep my monthly budget on track, e.g. a fixed allowance for eating out per month, have I spent it all by week three or can I afford to have one more fancy dinner with my wife or with friends and still stay within my budget? Ninjinka's tips sound pretty positive about making the UI friction-free for keeping transactions up to date, because it's my responsibility to put good data in; however if the reporting/charts doesn't tell me anything actionable in an easy to read format then there's no point.
> What I need to know on a regular basis, during a given month and at the end of the month, is: how much have I spent in general, compared with how much I planned to spend? Am I overspending in a particular category that I need to correct to keep my monthly budget on track, e.g. a fixed allowance for eating out per month, have I spent it all by week three or can I afford to have one more fancy dinner with my wife or with friends and still stay within my budget?
Don't most personal finance apps have this? You can set a budget for a category per day/week/month and see how much you spent and how much you have left to spend.
thank you, i'll take this as food for thought and see if i can improve the datavis!
I agree, if you need insights related to budgeting, then I recommend Actual or Firefly, as noted in readme. This app is strictly intended to be simpler. no budgeting, just tracking.
almost none such tools touch the problem of future planning or projection. it's kind of strange but perhaps it reflects culture. nothing beats making your own spreadsheets.
What kind of future projection are you looking for? My main issue is not all months are the same, sometimes I might spend way more in a given month for a given category (perhaps a one-off purchase like new furniture) that I don't aim to replicate for the next month, so how would the projection work in that case?
You create buffer categories that you slowly fill up over time and use for these one-offs. YNAB calls it "rolling with the punches". Most categories are predictable month to month, and the ones that aren't or are one offs you budget separately for.
Yeah that's essentially what I do, or have a yearly budget for things like furniture rather than a monthly one. I just wish it was more standardized in many apps.
