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After struggling with Mint and YNAB for a while, I figured that I didn't really want to budget. I was tired of categorizing and setting up $20 budgets. I ended

After struggling with Mint and YNAB for a while, I figured that I didn't really want to budget. I was tired of categorizing and setting up $20 budgets. I ended up with a simpler methodology which is basically a MUCH simpler version of YNAB. It worked really well and I've stuck with this for a while now. Just a few weeks ago, my partner and I launched Funded [0] that follows this method. Would love to get feedback from the HN community too. [0] https://apps.apple.com/app/id1438924754 https://apps.apple.com/app/id1438924754

eddyg 7y ago
Looks good, but it's free. Care to offer any insight on how you plan to monetize your app and make it sustainable?
- tusharsoni 7y ago
  Thanks! It's free for now because it's new. We want to get an initial set of users, polish the app further, and then start the monetization. Right now, I'm leaning towards a subscription model because it makes the most sense. I think YNAB is too pricy and a personal finance app can sustain with a $2-3/mo subscription. Is there any other monetization model that we should be looking at?
  - gizmo686 7y ago
    How do you plan to handle the transitionfrom free to subscription? Once you price yourself at 0, it can be very difficult to convince users to start paying for what was once free. I would generally recommend avoiding having a free period entirely, and instead offer an early adopters discount as well as a free trial period. Since it sounds like you missed your chance on that one, I would look for ways to offer both a free and payed version. Again, the difficulty here is that once something is in the free version, you want to avoid removing it, so you will need compelling new feaures to make this work. You also need to make sure that the free version continues to leave a good impression. Having said that, I suspect you will find there is a reason so many companies end up monetizing through avertisements...
    - tusharsoni 7y ago
      We don't plan on monetizing our existing users. As early users, they're providing their value with feedback and helping us work out the kinks. Once the app is monetized, all new users will have to go through that. Even then, I think a free period is a good idea or maybe a freemium version. The only risk with freemium version is giving away too much or too little for free.
  - eddyg 7y ago
    Sounds good. I would definitely pay $2-3/month for a good "money" app that consolidates views in to all my spending and provides insight in to where my money is going. How does "Sign in with Apple" work if I want to share Funded with my somebody on another device that has their own Apple ID?
kevstev 7y ago
Maybe I am just wired differently, but every budgeting program is just annoying at best. I get "scolded" because I went over my $40 clothing budget budget because I bought a coat or a suit, or took advantage of a sale. I don't buy clothes one pair of socks at a time per month, I take advantage of good sales and every few years I need a suit. One way to potentially solve this is to "roll over" any excess from month to month. Even worse is these auto-budgets that try to take your previous 12 months of spending and use that as your future budget guideline. Thanks for telling me I have a $5/month starbucks budget, since on average I take out a coworker for coffee about that much (and again, one month I might take out 2 coworkers, and now I get an alert that I am over budget!). I guess in general I am quite cheap, I don't need the "discipline" of being told how much I should spend in a month on things. If you don't have the self control to not spend too much on discretionary things like clothing or entertainment, I am not sure setting a budget is really going to help.
- tusharsoni 7y ago
  Trust me, it's not just you. That is exactly why I couldn't use any of the budgeting apps. I'm an adult and I don't want to be told by an app where I can spend my money. Funded takes an "anti-budgeting" approach. You only set up your obligations and savings. You're left with discretionary spending that rolls over every paycheck and you can spend it on whatever you want. Not tracked and not budgeted. Lmk what you think!
- sct202 7y ago
  I condensed most of my budget categories just to check if my total monthly spending is normal bounds and nothing unusual is happening.
- pfranz 7y ago
  It sounds like you aren't looking for budgeting and just want to see categories over time (which is mostly what I want and seems like a lot of people here). However, if you are interested in budgeting, one solution is what YNAB does. You can have an expense and carry it over between months. For example, if you have a utility that's due by-monthly you can budget half every month. Or if property taxes are due twice a year, do the same. For some reason a lot of budgeting tools fail miserably at this.

eddyg 7y ago

Looks good, but it's free. Care to offer any insight on how you plan to monetize your app and make it sustainable?

tusharsoni 7y ago
Thanks! It's free for now because it's new. We want to get an initial set of users, polish the app further, and then start the monetization. Right now, I'm leaning towards a subscription model because it makes the most sense. I think YNAB is too pricy and a personal finance app can sustain with a $2-3/mo subscription. Is there any other monetization model that we should be looking at?
- gizmo686 7y ago
  How do you plan to handle the transitionfrom free to subscription? Once you price yourself at 0, it can be very difficult to convince users to start paying for what was once free. I would generally recommend avoiding having a free period entirely, and instead offer an early adopters discount as well as a free trial period. Since it sounds like you missed your chance on that one, I would look for ways to offer both a free and payed version. Again, the difficulty here is that once something is in the free version, you want to avoid removing it, so you will need compelling new feaures to make this work. You also need to make sure that the free version continues to leave a good impression. Having said that, I suspect you will find there is a reason so many companies end up monetizing through avertisements...
  - tusharsoni 7y ago
    We don't plan on monetizing our existing users. As early users, they're providing their value with feedback and helping us work out the kinks. Once the app is monetized, all new users will have to go through that. Even then, I think a free period is a good idea or maybe a freemium version. The only risk with freemium version is giving away too much or too little for free.
- eddyg 7y ago
  Sounds good. I would definitely pay $2-3/month for a good "money" app that consolidates views in to all my spending and provides insight in to where my money is going. How does "Sign in with Apple" work if I want to share Funded with my somebody on another device that has their own Apple ID?

kevstev 7y ago

Maybe I am just wired differently, but every budgeting program is just annoying at best. I get "scolded" because I went over my $40 clothing budget budget because I bought a coat or a suit, or took advantage of a sale. I don't buy clothes one pair of socks at a time per month, I take advantage of good sales and every few years I need a suit. One way to potentially solve this is to "roll over" any excess from month to month. Even worse is these auto-budgets that try to take your previous 12 months of spending and use that as your future budget guideline. Thanks for telling me I have a $5/month starbucks budget, since on average I take out a coworker for coffee about that much (and again, one month I might take out 2 coworkers, and now I get an alert that I am over budget!). I guess in general I am quite cheap, I don't need the "discipline" of being told how much I should spend in a month on things. If you don't have the self control to not spend too much on discretionary things like clothing or entertainment, I am not sure setting a budget is really going to help.

tusharsoni 7y ago
Trust me, it's not just you. That is exactly why I couldn't use any of the budgeting apps. I'm an adult and I don't want to be told by an app where I can spend my money. Funded takes an "anti-budgeting" approach. You only set up your obligations and savings. You're left with discretionary spending that rolls over every paycheck and you can spend it on whatever you want. Not tracked and not budgeted. Lmk what you think!
sct202 7y ago
I condensed most of my budget categories just to check if my total monthly spending is normal bounds and nothing unusual is happening.
pfranz 7y ago
It sounds like you aren't looking for budgeting and just want to see categories over time (which is mostly what I want and seems like a lot of people here). However, if you are interested in budgeting, one solution is what YNAB does. You can have an expense and carry it over between months. For example, if you have a utility that's due by-monthly you can budget half every month. Or if property taxes are due twice a year, do the same. For some reason a lot of budgeting tools fail miserably at this.