Overview

As a longtime user of behavior-change apps like MyFitnessPal, Noom, and Weight Watchers, I’ve always found their calorie/point tracking model incredibly intuitive — you have a daily or weekly limit, you log what you consume, and the app helps you stay accountable.

Money Envelopes brings this same visual and mental model to personal finance. It’s a manual-entry budgeting app that helps users track daily or weekly budgets across customizable categories — just like using real cash envelopes.

Designed for people who want more control and less chaos than automated apps like Mint, this tool is lightweight, intentional, and built with real spending behavior in mind.

The Problem

Most budgeting apps are either too complex or too automated to be useful.

Apps like Mint or RocketMoney often miscategorize expenses, overwhelm users with charts, and make it difficult to track one-time or irregular purchases. Over time, this leads to frustration, abandonment, and a loss of trust in the data.

Users who want more mindful, low-friction tracking are often left with spreadsheets — or nothing at all.

I wanted to create something simple. No syncing. No AI guessing games. Just you, your envelopes, and a clear view of how much you’ve spent — and what’s left.

Goals

• Build a clear, easy-to-use UI inspired by fitness tracking tools

• Enable users to manually log expenses by category

• Support both daily and weekly budget views (like Weight Watchers' daily/weekly points)

• Create a working prototype using basic front-end tools

• Test with a small group of real users to validate assumptions and iterate

Users & Early Research

This idea came from personal pain points, but I didn’t want to build in a vacuum.

To validate the concept, I spoke with about 10 friends and peers in my coworking space — mostly people in their 20s and 30s who are freelancers, entrepreneurs, or early in their careers. I asked how they track their spending, if they use budgeting tools, and what their biggest frustrations were.

Key takeaways:

• Many had tried Mint or similar apps but quit due to inaccurate categorization or information overload

• Most liked the idea of a “manual” app if the entry process was fast and the UI felt lightweight

• Several said they would use something like this if it felt simple enough — especially those already familiar with calorie-tracking apps

• This early feedback gave me confidence to move into concepting and prototyping.

Design Process

I mapped out a very simple user flow where they can either log in or sign up/create a profile. Once they log in, they can:

• Track an expense

• Edit their categories

• View daily/weekly budget

• Change profile settings

• View Weekly/Monthly Summary (this one will come up automatically at the end of the week/month)