Budget Tracker
The first project I built end to end.
01 · Problem
Many people do not know where their money goes. Income and spending are scattered across notes, memory and bank messages, so it is hard to see the balance at a glance or to notice overspending before it happens.
02 · Solution
A personal finance app where users log income and expenses with categories and dates, and get a dashboard of their income, spending and balance at a glance. They can set monthly budgets per category, see how much is left, and get alerts when they go over.
03 · Process
- 01
Research
Looked at how people track their money and which features a simple budgeting app really needs.
- 02
Project requirements
Defined the core features: logging income and expenses, categories, monthly budgets, a dashboard and over-budget alerts.
- 03
System design
Planned the architecture, the ERD and the data model for transactions, categories and budgets.
- 04
API
Built the backend that stores transactions, calculates balances and budget limits, and triggers alerts.
- 05
User interface
Built the dashboard and forms for logging transactions and setting budgets.
- 06
Testing
Tested the features and fixed bugs until the whole flow worked end to end.
- 07
Deployment
Deployed the frontend on Vercel and the backend on Render.
- 08
What I learned
It is not a major project, but it was my very first learning experience. It put me in the building loop that led to everything else on this site.
04 · Tech stack used
05 · Links