Turning spending into stories to build better money habits

Problem Statement:

Most budgeting apps in the market today are highly analytical and data-heavy. They show charts and numbers, but not meaning.

Most young professionals today want to manage their money better, but traditional budgeting apps can often be quite anxiety-inducing and disengaging, resulting in people not opening them at all.

Solution Overview:

SpendStories is an application which can transform a user’s weekly spending data into visual and narrative summaries in the form of short, story-like insights.

This can help user see their money patterns in a more engaging and personal way. It would read more like a money diary that one can swipe on rather than a spreadsheet, and would help users better reflect on their day-to-day expenses.

This week you made 10 small purchases for yourself, mostly on coffee and food-delivery apps. You saved ₹300 on auto fares.

Each story can highlight specific patterns and give insights, urging the user to build the habit of more mindful spending in the long run.

Let's take a user persona:

Name: Anya

Age: 24

Occupation: Software Developer in Hyderabad

Pain Points:

• Finds budgeting apps too mechanical
• Often feels guilty after making impulse purchases
• Is concerned about how much money she spends on food delivery apps and autos
• Would like a finance tool that felt more human

User Journey:

1. Onboarding

• A friendly, conversational onboarding flow where the user can create an account with their email ID or log in via platforms like Google.

• To get the user’s daily expenditure data, there are multiple choices (user can opt for one or more of these):

  • Read their SMS and keep track of messages from the bank on money credited or debited
  • Connect the application to their bank account and directly keep track of credit and debit card expenses

  It is important that the expenses are not duplicated. Often times when it comes to UPI apps, the expenses maybe recorded twice - once via the UPI app itself and once via the bank - this can result in an inaccurate analysis.

• The user gets to choose what they want to set their weekly budget/monthly budget as. The application will use this as a benchmark for all analysis.

• The users can also choose specific budgets for specific categories. Like a budget for groceries or shopping. The user can further get specific with the type of shopping also - clothes, electronics, stationery, etc. Each of these should be present as categories and sub-categories. Users can choose to make their custom categories/sub-categories or use a set of default ones provided by the app and add/delete/edit them.