Budget Tracking App

Context

Cut Budget App is an early-stage fintech startup focused on personal budgeting and expense tracking.
The project was designed as an MVP, with the goal of helping users better understand and control their monthly finances.

The product targeted everyday users who wanted a simple way to track income and expenses without the mental overhead of manual bookkeeping.

Problem

Most budgeting apps rely heavily on manual data entry.
Users were expected to log every income and expense themselves — daily, consistently, and accurately.

In reality, this led to:

• Broken routines after a few days

• Missing or delayed entries

• Inaccurate monthly overviews

• Loss of trust in their own budget data

Because the system depended entirely on user discipline, even motivated users struggled to maintain consistency over time.

My Role

I was the lead and sole product designer on the project.

I worked end-to-end across:

• UX flows and user journeys

• UI design

• Product structure and feature definition

• UX copy and empty states

• Collaboration with founders, developers, and external stakeholders

From early ideation to MVP-level designs, I was involved in every design decision.

Process & Key Decisions

We started by analyzing existing budgeting and finance apps to understand:

• How users are currently asked to track expenses

• Where friction most often occurs

• Which patterns fail to support long-term consistency

Through conversations with potential users already using similar apps, one insight stood out clearly:

The problem wasn’t understanding budgeting — it was maintaining the habit.

Based on that, several key design decisions shaped the product:

• Automation-first mindset: reducing manual input wherever possible instead of adding “better forms”

• Lightweight daily interactions: minimizing effort required to log or review expenses

• Clear monthly feedback loops: helping users immediately see the impact of missed or completed entries

The focus was not on adding more features, but on removing friction from the core behavior.