An expense tracker is an essential for becoming more financially aware of your habits.
And if there’s one essential app that I’d have to recommend, it will always be this one.
The Money Manager App has been around for a while now and I’ve been using it for around 5 years (give or take).
I’ve always been conscious about the money I spend. It just makes me more aware of how much s*** I buy that I don’t really need. As well as seeing whether or not my expenses and income balance each other out — better yet, know that I’m actually saving some money.
Nothing beats seeing the numbers (and maybe some graphical representation) staring you right in the face!
Before I get into it, I want make it clear that this is NOT a sponsored post. Who’s going to sponsor me, anyway? Also, you can get this app for free! YAY.
Just a bit of background, I try my best not to connect any of my accounts to other sites/apps — especially when it comes to money.
Connecting credit cards? Not a problem, there’s always a way to refute that. Debit cards and the bank accounts themselves? I am wary of that.
Which is why I like this one so much.
- You’re not required to create an account.
- You don’t connect any of your assets through online banking or whatever.
- There’s a reporting system.
- It allows you to export your data!
- You determine the exchange rates you want to follow (and anything related to that is updated accordingly).
- Plus some added things when you have a pro account (which I don’t have).
The amount of autonomy you get is just great. Sure, you have to manually enter every expense and income but that keeps you accountable as well!
Every time I open the app, I see how much I’ve spent that day. It absolutely sucks having to log your expenses because… that’s just how life is. But it’s also absolutely exhilarating to log your income!
My one qualm about it is that I couldn’t switch from one currency to another. Although I think this is a very special case, which is also limited to a few.
You see, I moved to Canada from the Philippines last year. Having kept track of my expenses in PHP, naturally, I wanted to switch to CAD. To do that, however, all data I had from the past few years would be deleted.
I couldn’t do that. So in the whole of 2020, I kept on logging things in CAD but seeing them in PHP numbers (if you get what I mean).
Then 2021 came and I decided that I really had to do something about it. I started looking into other expense tracking apps that I could use. But nothing came close to it.
So I yielded. I exported my data, and started anew with this app.
It wasn’t that big of a deal but I guess it was like a symbolism to me that I really am starting over. It’s something that I’m still having difficulties wrapping my head around.
Anyway, with all that said, if you haven’t been tracking your finances, it would be a great time to start! Having an expense tracker app (or even could be your way in on becoming more aware of what to prioritize or simply learning more about yourself and your spending habits.
If you want the pro features (more accounts and connection to the desktop app), please use this link as a referral. We both get pro perks!