So we made an app

[Drevin]

Ray and I have been working on an app that started from a hackathon for a few months now. It's called Budgie! It's currently available for the App Store if you have an iPhone. Android coming soon for those droid users here.

Every day you get a daily allowance and that's what you get to spend per day. You can spend more than your allowance but then you go negative (bad). Every day you get your allowance (at 12am your time) and anything left unspent rolls over to the next day. You make money by not spending it!

I've been using it just to see how much money I spend on an average day and I have to say at first the results were genuinely surprising. I've since reduced the number of things (or how much I spend) per day as a result! I find the allowance total gives me a good idea of how my "take-home pay" is being used and if it's been used effectively or not.

Try it out, and please leave any feedback here (or email us at hello@gobudgie.me)!

[Ray]

Android coming soon.

Came up with the idea last year when I was having trouble understanding my monthly budget. Decided to say 300 is about 10 a day, and kept track on a notepad of whether I was above or below my guideline. It ended up becoming too difficult to do, but now that we've made an app for it, I've been using it for months. It's awesome. I have $24 allowed to me today and I'm gonna go to the grocery store guilt-free. I've also set aside (piece by piece) about $40 now and can spend that on any entertainment or luxury or videogame I want (prob need to save more tho).

[Drevin]

Something I forgot to mention is that if you are intimidated by setting up a budget then try the app out. It's a great way to ease yourself into money management

[Monkey]

I just go old school and give myself a cash allowance. Good idea though. I could've used it back when I bought everything with my debit card, although I'm kind of Rain Man-y when it comes to keeping track of how much I've spent.

[link470]

and I'm gonna go to the grocery store guilt-free.

Do you count groceries and necessities in Budgie and subtract those transactions?

[Ray]

i count everything. if it isn't a fixed cost, it's part of my budget. i've got my student loans, rent, utilities, and my budget. since i don't have regular income now, i don't have another category going into savings/investments, but when i do, i will (well, not until my high-% loans are paid off)

[Warp2063]

I await the Android version. I'll give it a spin, then.