The written list, aka the “My Budgets” page, gives a comprehensive overview of all budgets, and allows you to toggle between viewing remaining funds versus spent funds, and your budgetary allowance for the current day versus the total budgetary period. Budgets are conveniently color-coded: green to indicate under-budget spending, and red to warn you you’ve bottomed out.

The main drawback to Pennies is that it requires manual addition of budget spends. Each time you spend from or add funds to a budget, you enter a quick note that updates your total. Each budget has a list of these notes you can view by title and/or date. While it would certainly be nice if Pennies could connect to your bank and intelligently sift through your debit card purchases, it doesn’t seem the tech is there yet--for any app (even one like Mint, which still requires a good deal of manual labor to aid the algorithm).