There is a common idea that first and easiest form of start-up capital is money gathered from personal savings, its require neither collateral nor will interest. The greatest financial problem of this millennial is not lack of income, at least in developed countries, it is an inability to figure out exactly where money is going.
Are you spending on things that you want or your income goes to buying things that you need? Yeah, this is a tough question for 90% of people.

if I cannot articulate how I spend my money, there is a 90% chance that I will have no savings.

When people complain about how they have been working hard for almost a decade, and they still depend on the credit card to meet financial obligations, their spending pattern must be checked.

This is not an article on just another mobile application, it is about an app that has worked for me. It has helped me to discover where the bulk of my income is going. I believe that this realization is fundamental to developing realistic financial control, more than before, I can now budget based on available data.

You Have Spending Problem? Let's Piggy Budget It!

We are all familiar with the idea of savings with the money box, it is typically shaped like a pig, this is why it was named after pig, hence piggy bank. This is a name that is easy to relate with, it is about fidelity and being prudent. As children, the piggy bank has helped us to save, it was easy because 98% of spending was done by our parents. We are now adults and the responsibility increases with age. If we do not manage what we have, we may never be able to save for the rainy season.

With Piggybudgets, more money goes to my piggy bank.

I Made Piggybudget Work For Me, My Experience

This mobile app allow me to track my income and expenses with few clicks, I can choose from different income and expenses categories, there is a privilege to choose between different local currencies as it applies to users' nationality. The availability of statistics and access to transaction history is what I even find interesting. Without much ado, let me take you through Piggybudget.

Home: as soon as you open the app, you will see two most important symbols in mathematics and financial accounting, the plus (+) sign in green and minus (-) sign in red color. Above them are total budget history, statistics, and settings. No more, no less. What a fantastic user interface!

when I click on plus or minus, Piggybudget will ask if I want to add money for a purpose, then I can choose any icon that graphically represents the category. Then input the figure, the same thing applies to spend. If no icon actually describes the purpose of income or spending, I will choose others which are represented by three dots icon.

You can see the currency symbol in naira, that is my local currency and I prefer it to dollars in order to avoid confusion and currency conversion. Really, I will advise users to stick to local currency even if they earn in dollars. Hey! Stick with what works for you. You can choose the currency of your choice in app settings, I will elaborate on this.

History: if an app promises to help you track your budget, it must provide you with a log of your expenses and incomes. Through the settings, I informed Piggybudget that my monthly income is 10,000 naira, it's does the job of dividing it by the number of days in the month and add it to my income on daily basis.

This is good because it reminds me of my daily income potential, so I don't go overboard. If you click on three doors at the left-hand side of every transaction, it will give you the option to edit, change expense/income or delete any of them. Actually, I can change expense to income and vice versa.

Settings: this is where I have permission to change currency and set daily or monthly income. You can see from the above screenshot that my 10,000 naira monthly income has been divided by 28 days and it is now 357.14 naira daily income. If I have chosen daily income, there will be no need for division.

Statistics: it is quite amazing when your income and expenses have a graphical representation in form of bar and pie charts. I am able to have a glance at my spending pattern. It is obvious that paying rents took a significant part of my income, this would change before the end of the year as I continue to record daily transactions.
Technically, I have to work for seven months in a year to be able to continue paying rent. That is a dangerous indication, it is either I work towards increasing my income or I look for cheaper accommodation.

What I Like About Piggy Budget

I can't stand heavy mobile application due to space demand on RAM (Random Access Memory), it limits phone users in terms of how many good apps they can enjoy. My device is just 2gig RAM, I really need to make the best use of it, though there are times when space is not a priority if the app functionality is unique. But with low space, superb functionality and simple interface, Piggybudget does it for me. I recommend it to anyone. No app is perfect, I will recommend a few things to developers here and on GitHub repository.

Experienced User's Recommendations

• since the app does not synchronize with other accounts like Gmail, it is the responsibility of users to create a backup for the transaction history. This is only possible if my data can be exported as a CSV file. I would like to see this feature in subsequent updates.
• I have issues with a bright screen, it will be nice if users with similar challenge can switch from the bright screen during the day to night mode in the evening
• it will be cool if developer include 'About Us' page, some users will not have to download Piggybudget from app store, they may have gotten it through Xender and similar apps. It is important that users know about the developer.

Version Update

Links

Source Codes
https://github.com/pmiddend/piggybudget
My Github Profile
https://github.com/autofreak
Series: Nil
Download: https://f-droid.org/app/de.php_tech.piggybudget