Managing money, made easy.
Problem Space
In our research surveying over 200 students, 90% of participants rated that it was important to understand how they spent their money. Yet, only 14% rated that they had a system that worked and felt fully in control of their spending. Despite the many money management tools in the market, people still struggled to answer where their money was going.
Transactions tell a story.
Taking inspiration from apps like Spotify wrapped and Apple photos, we thought, was another way we could present financial information to consumers? Your transactions tell a story so could we use them to tell consumers their spending story? Could we take advantage of visuals and provide key information at a glance?
How were people currently managing their money?
“I want to be more conscious. A lot of small things that I don’t remember added up to quite a bit. I started putting my expenses in a spreadsheet but I’m not very consistent. I often forget to update it or get lazy.”
“I tried a few different things and don’t know why things haven’t worked for me. I’ve tried spreadsheets for budgeting but I’m not a numbers person.”
“I track my money by just looking through my transactions and keeping track of my balance. This doesn't work that well since it's hard to see where I might be spending too much money and how I can cut down.”
“It’s not like I don’t know how to move my money into my savings account, but I need to know what I’m spending my money on so that I can decide what I can cut back on and put away.”
Saving money meant spending less. Spending less meant being aware of what you were spending on.
Our solution
People were often surprised at their credit card bill at the end of the month. They’d do a quick scan of their transactions to see what they spent their money on and perhaps do a little mental math. Despite money management apps on the market, some people still didn’t know where their money went and often felt overwhelmed.
Our goal was to build a judge-free money management tool that informed users of what they were buying so that they could decide for themselves, if they needed to spend less or if they were on track.
Spent $114 on Starbucks? Yikes! Or that’s ok! Let the user decide.
Initial Feedback
We received some positive feedback in our initial prototype testing.
The app was developed by UGO and now in its closed testing phase. The initial project team included Kyryll Odobetskiy, Neil Bakhle and myself.