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Article in App of the Week category.
Nudget Gives You That Little Push To Create a Better Budget
I feel like everyone should at least try a budget app. At least once. They can be quite beneficial and even if they don’t…
I feel like everyone should at least try a budget app. At least once. They can be quite beneficial and even if they don’t dictate where you spend your cash they can at least provide insights into where it all goes. Nudget is a beautifully designed spending tracker that wants to do just that.
Let’s get the basics out of the way first and foremost. Nudget has all the requisite features you’d expect from a solid budget app. You can set your basic budget including your income and allot specific amounts into various categories such as reoccurring expenses (I see all those monthly subscriptions you got!), savings, spending money, etc. There is a running list view of every dollar going in and out of your account. Change the currency to any you like from the Japanese Yen to the Indian Rupee. And easy track any time you spend money.
All of these features Nudget pulls off quite well. The spending entry screen for example, is well- designed with a large green box at the top that mimics the shape of U.S. paper currency. Use the keypad to input how much you spent and a series of little pill boxes — complete with emojiglyphs — posits some possible categories it may belong in. It is visual, aesthetically pleasing, and quick.
What sold me most on Nudget, design aside, was the incredible insights and graphs the app provided. On the insights tab you can jump between day, week, two week, month, quarter, and year views to see where your money is spent. It doesn’t just provide one or two points but a large list of interesting finds. All complete with colorful arrows and iconography. Total spending was down this amount for the period, your biggest cash drop was for that gadget, but your biggest category was groceries. That can also be viewed graphically, which is equally as colorful and possibly even more useful.
You know I can’t do an app review without mention all of the ways it takes advantage of the iOS ecosystem. Nudget pulls in every feature it can including being able to lock the app with Face ID or Touch ID and even entering spending via Siri. I love hopping back in my car and telling Siri I just spent $45 on groceries and letting her do the rest. Other handy features are the ability to change the app icon to many different options, iCloud backup, complete local privacy, and Family Sharing so all of your family can use it with one purchase. Lastly, Nudget offers a huge array of handy widgets to sit on your Home Screen.
As I said at the inset, Nudget isn’t going to tell you how to spend your money or even magically provide more money for you to spend. But the app feels so nice to use that it almost makes you want to use it for that reason alone. The insights are spectacular and it presents the information clearly without muss. If you learn even a little about your spending habits or it prevents you from spending money you don’t have even once, it’s done its job.
But enough about other people's apps.
