Building a Simple Budgeting Tool as Good as Simple's
Simple Bank is shutting down and their apps will stop working on May 8, 2021. Follow me over the next 40 days to see if I can build something to replace Simple's budgeting tools before they disappear.
So, what made Simple's budgeting tools so great? Simplicity and automation.
Simplicity: Their expense feature closely resembled real-life cash envelopes. It was easy to assign an expense to a transaction and even move money between expenses. I had tried zero-based budgeting with other tools and they felt hard enough that I didn't stick it out.
Automation: Every paycheck would automatically get distributed across my expenses.I did not have to sit and figure out each month's budget. This was really helpful because most months are the same and I was able to average out costs that might change (i.e. electric bills).
There’s a lot more but the video below is a good description.
The more I thought about it, the more realistic it seemed that I could build some tools that provided the ease-of-use and flexibility that Simple's budgeting tools did. Here's an outline of what this entails.
I'm not building a bank. This will have to be used as a layer on top of a traditional checking account.
I do not want to enter transactions manually.
I like the envelope system and want to have tools that resemble real life envelopes, stuffed with cash, as much as possible.
We need something akin to sinking funds that let us accrue money for bi-annual bills like car insurance.
My wife and I need to be able to access the tools from our phones.
We do not, nor do we plan to, set up a budget for each month. Our budget doesn't change often and we are lazy.
It needs to be good enough that my wife uses it. This rules out things like Excel.
7 things. 40 days. Let's do it.
More About Simple
Simple was launched in 2012 as an online bank. Technology and customer support were the cornerstones of their product. This meant that their mobile and web applications were streamlined and elegant. By 2020, their service and apps were *simply* amazing.
A fun fact is that they would send rubber bands with their ATM cards. I haven't had a wallet in 8 years! Here’s a support conversation I had requesting random rubber bands.