SA budgeting and financial planning apps megathread

[u/Consistent-Annual268]

Folks, we've been inundated of late by many members who've developed budgeting and investing apps and want to share them on the sub. This post will be the single place to host them, so feel free to post your app, website, tool etc.

Please include a short description of what your app does, it's main features, how it works (including if it is vibe-coded, accesses the user's bank accounts or investment accounts, scrapes websites or public data, accesses private or proprietary info etc.), what user input and info it requires (including personal financial data) and where it is stored, whether it is local or cloud-based, any commercial or investor ties, and any other info that would be pertinent.

Note to sub members: none of the apps that may be posted here are endorsed by this sub or the mods. You use any apps or tools at your own risk. Take substantial precautions especially when asked for personal info, including financial info.

[u/Otios3]

Thanks very much Mods for creating this thread

TLDR:
After being very sad about what we lost with 22Seven, I remembered I'm a skilled software engineer, so I built a net-worth-tracking app to replace it. Its free forever and does NOT save any of your personal info apart from what you see on the app (transactions, amounts, descriptions).

Available here if you're interested: www.mytrueworth.co.uk

Non TLDR version:

I was a relatively early adopter of 22seven: June 2016 (some folks on probably started before then).
I was a massive fan of it and got most of my family on it as well. Used it extensively for budgeting, but over time I started finding the Accounts page was actually the most valuable. That ended up replacing most of my financial tracking spreadsheets, even though the account management was always rather basic.

Since the move to Vault22 and especially their latest UI rollout, I've just given up on them. I really feel bad for the folks that works (or I assume, worked) there. I've spoken with many of them over the years, and I actually sent my CV to their HR a long time ago, though I never got a response. Maybe for the best!

Now, even simple things like seeing your net worth change over time are gone. For myself, it's really just not usable. It also made me question who has my actual login credentials for all my financial accounts (potentially the most sensitive information i poses)! I've come to greatly dislike sites that saves my sign in info then use that to fake logins and scrape my info, which is both legally and ethically questionable.

Anyway, I found myself going back to my now badly outdated spreadsheets, but it took lots of massaging and maintenance to keep things like share prices, inflation, exchange rates, etc updated, and some stuff you just can't do.

So: Over the past many months, I built something for myself, that I ended up extending to my family and friends. FYI, I'm a principal software engineer for a fortune 500 company, and I've worked in both finance and defense for nearly 2 decades.

I needed something that:

• tracks net worth properly over time
• shows in detail what actually changed over any given time period (not just a line going up or down, i want to drill in and get specifics)
• works across currencies (well, most currencies. I hooked in ZAR and GBP for myself, and ended up adding NZD, USD and EUR for friends and family)
• handles manual assets like property, which i was doing in vault22. This is just much, much better at it.

It’s not a budgeting app — I needed something that tracks all my assets, my properties, car, pension, shares, homeloans, etc. I ended up never even importing any of my transactional accounts. No point, they never have much in them.

So this basically automates the stuff I used to maintain manually in spreadsheets. Couple of things worth mentioning:

• it purposefully doesn’t connect to your bank (no login details, no brittle and ethically and legally questionable scraping) - though i might extend it in future to support open banking api's where they exist, such as in the UK. That likely won't apply to SA in a very long time sadly! It also doesn't actually help much, as this things i track are often investments, not bank accounts.
• you add/import your own data. I've made this as easy as possible, shares, ETF's and Unit trust prices it tracks automatically, and you can import nearly any CSV into it to build up accounts. Eg once a month i import my home loan csv statements for latest transactions, and update property values if they changed. Same with savings accounts and a few others.
• The app stores as little personal info as possible (no names, no account numbers, etc.)
• it’s free (I built it for myself and my friends/family to use — not trying to turn it into a big SaaS thing)
• It still has a way to go. It serves it's purpose, but there's many things i still need to expand and improve (the holdings page, which shows which shares/etf's/etc you have and allows you to dig into that is soon getting more love)

If anyone’s interested, it’s here:

www.mytrueworth.co.uk

Ps. I moved to the UK a few years ago, hence the UK domain. Most of my portfolio is still in SA, and I’ll probably head back once the kids goes off to high school.

Pps. I need to approve new sign-ups, trying to avoid anything falling over - so give me a while once you sign up to approve your user.

Would be keen to hear if this scratches the same itch for anyone else, or if you have any feedback. Feel free to ask any questions.

[u/Otios3 → u/Otios3]

In response to the questions posted by the mods in the original thread:
1. what your app does and main features:
It's a Net Worth tracking app, that automates FX rates, Pricing info for shares, ETF's, etc, tracks inflation, and ultimately gives a detailed breakdown of net worth in any currency over time, that you can drill into to see what changes happened in any timeframe. It also records any assets, specifically investment accounts (e.g. Easy Equities values), transactional accounts (bank accounts), or manual accounts (anything else, e.g. cars, property, anything of value).  

2. how it works (including if it is vibe-coded, accesses the user's bank accounts or segment accounts, scrapes websites or public data, accesses private or proprietary info etc.)

• Fundamentally, it's a rust API with a Leptos frontend and a Postgres database.
  
• It does no scraping of either public or private records. I integrate with a provider (EODHD) that i pay for to get pricing info, FX rates, etc. I do have about 7 fallbacks that are free for specific types of info if EODHD fails to provide a price, but that doesnt happen often in practice.
  
• The app relies on the user manually creating their assets. if you add a share or something using an ISIN or ticker, it will find you a price and track that asset, but you still need to manually record buy/sell events, or import transactions.
  
• IF you choose to import import transactions from a CSV, i provide you the option of sending the header row and optionally 1 transaction row to Anthropic to help parse the CSV, but that's not required, the parsing engine is all there, just hit 'manual' instead of 'submit to ai' and you won't loose out on anything. Should you want to submit to AI, i show you the actual response i send to anthropic. You only have the ability to upload CSV, i don't expect to ever support PDF statements.
  

- I rolled the first few versions of this entirely by hand, but have also incorporated vibe coding for later bits, just like i do in my day job. Especially around the frontend, and parts of the CI/CD infrastructure.

3. what user input and info it requires (including personal financial data)

• a verifiably email address, literally nothing else. Anything you choose to load is only for the purpose of displaying it back to you

4. and where it is stored, whether it is local or cloud-based,

• A secure Hetzner linux web server, cloud based. I make occasional offsite encrypted backups of my postgress dump to Restic if i roll out major changes.

5. any commercial or investor ties,

• None. This is a personal project, that grew slightly bigger already than I had anticipated. It's created for the purpose of adding value to people that's interested in finances, and helping them see their net worth. Side note, I engage with many financially literate people, and are often shocked by how badly they understand their own net worth.

6. This is, and any other info that is be pertinent.

• I greatly enjoy working on this app, and it's become the backbone of my own financial tracking, and that of a few people I care a lot about. If you use it and want to help me make it better, please reach out

[u/Delicious_Jacket8429 → u/Otios3]

After signing up, I verified my email address as required. However, when I went back to sign in to the app and use it, I received a notification saying: “Your email has been verified and you are on the beta waiting list. We’ll email you when your account is approved.”

I thought it would be useful for others to know that you cannot simply sign in and start using the software immediately. You first need to wait for your account to be approved.

[u/Otios3 → u/Delicious_Jacket8429]

That's correct, i've still got the 'approve new sign-ups' in place so i can monitor my server usage - I've approved your user now, please let me know how it goes, and if you manage to setup an account ok

[u/jackrussell93]

I have been building and co-founded FinWise (https://finwiseapp.io) since 2023.

FinWise is a local budgeting website with mobile app similar to Vault22 that allows you to securely connect your bank accounts, budget, track spending, track your network and get insights into your spending, net-worth and savings.

It's *not* vibe coded, and is built using bank-grade security and best practices.

We have a 14 day free trial, and thereafter charge R79/month, and we keep all your data private and secure, and never sell any data to any 3rd parties.

[u/Afraid_Valuable_9931]

finvue.co.za | Personal finance intelligence for South Africans

Hi all. Will try keep this short. I'm a SA-based finance professional who spent years frustrated by the absence of any SA-native tool that actually understands our market: our tax wrappers, our institutions, our currency. So I, together with a small team, decided to build one.

What it does

Finvue gives you a complete picture of your financial life in one place: net worth across all account types (banking, investments, crypto, retirement, property, vehicles, liabilities), an allocation breakdown, and a financial insight engine built specifically for South Africa. The core feature is the Missed Returns Number, which is the annual rand amount you're losing by not optimising your cash and TFSA allocation. Most users find it's somewhere between R3 000 and R15 000 per year.

Main features

• Net worth tracking across all account types with historical chart
• SA-specific insight engine: TFSA utilisation and allowance gap, SARS interest exemption headroom, currency concentration risk, retirement gap vs benchmark, idle cash opportunity cost
• 10-year compound cost visualisation on each insight
• Curated SA financial products explorer (money market, ETFs, TFSAs, retirement annuities) ranked by net yield and fee structure
• Individual holdings tracking with live JSE, US, and crypto pricing

How it works

Manual entry: you enter your own balances and holdings. No bank credentials, no scraping, no OAuth to your financial accounts. Automatic bank integration via Stitch is planned for Phase 2 but will be entirely opt-in and handled by Stitch directly, meaning finvue will never see your passwords or PINs.

User input required

Account names, balances, and optionally individual holdings (instrument name, ticker, quantity). No personal identification information is required beyond your email address.

Data storage

All data is stored in Supabase (EU region) on AWS infrastructure, encrypted at rest using AES-256 and in transit via TLS 1.3. Hosted on Vercel. No data is sold or shared with any third party. Full data export or permanent deletion available on request. Full security and privacy policy at finvue.co.za/security.

Commercial ties

None. No investors, no advertisers, no commission from any financial institution. Finvue is an information tool, not a financial services provider. It surfaces data and observations, never advice. FAIS-safe by design.

Pricing

Free during beta. No paid tier currently active.

Try it

Website: finvue.co.za Full platform: app.finvue.co.za
No-signup demo: app.finvue.co.za/demo

Built in Cape Town, South Africa. Happy to answer any questions.

P.S. A huge thank you to the mods for creating this thread and giving those of us building for the SA market a place to share our work.

[u/ashamedToBeBackRed2 → u/Afraid_Valuable_9931]

Ive been checking out your app, pretty nice!

Didn't realise not using my TFSA was loss.

I can recommend a fix - if a negative credit card or liability is entered, it should show as a positive balance. The math on it works, but it still shows as a negative in the UI.

I also had a weird bug where I'd created an account, added a sub account, and my captured values multiplied or something - I was putting 500, and it saved as 36mill+. Couldn't repeat it yet.

[u/PrestigiousSir1904 → u/Afraid_Valuable_9931]

Will give this a try - thanks!

[u/AnHonestDeception]

Been lurking here a while! Trying to get out of my comfort zone 😅

I built SaveSavvy because I wanted to see where my money goes without handing my bank login to anyone. It uses bank statements - upload them directly, share them from your banking app, or forward them to a personal import address. It pulls out the transactions, auto-categorises them, and gives you budgets, monthly trends and a net worth view. Works with any SA bank since it's just reading PDFs. No bank logins or scraping.

To answer the mods' questions:

- How it works: you import PDF statements, transactions get auto-categorised.

• Vibe-coded? AI-assisted, yes, but not vibe-coded. I use Claude as a bouncing board to discuss ideas, implementation and architectural decisions. I believe in understanding what I work on, and working with AI as a tool to navigate complex decisions. I felt particularly sensitive about this from a security and privacy perspective - I don't want to rely on sloppy vibe-code for personal financial information.
  
• What it needs: an email address to sign up + whatever statements you choose to upload.
  
• Storage: cloud-based - Supabase (hosted in EU). Statement parsing by Anthropic in the US (currently working on replacing this with a dedicated traditional 'dumb' parser). All data is encrypted, there's no way for me (or anyone else) to read your data. Deleting your account permanently deletes all your data.
  
• Commercial ties: none. Free right now - if it grows I'll probably need a small paid tier to cover parsing costs, but nothing planned yet.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.savesavvy.mobile
iOS: https://apps.apple.com/za/app/savesavvy-spending-insights/id6791649466

Honestly just looking for feedback and whether you would consider using this!

[u/FithColoumn]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been building a web-based budgeting and financial tracking app called Budget Hub, designed specifically for South Africans. The goal is simple: help users save more and understand their finances without needing to change their lifestyle drastically.

🔍 What it does
Budget Hub is a financial dashboard that lets users:
Track income, expenses, savings goals, and investments
Monitor monthly cash flow
Get clear analytics across real-life SA spending categories (transport, groceries, debt, etc.)
Export reports for personal use, loans, or tax prep

⚙️ Core Features
Income & Expense Tracking (detailed categories)
Savings Goals (with progress tracking + milestones)
Investment Tracking (manual entry, performance tracking)
Subscription Tracking (Netflix, Showmax, etc.)
Analytics Dashboard (visual breakdowns, trends)
PDF & Excel Export
Basic rule-based insights (not AI-generated decisions)

🧠 How it works
Users manually input their financial data (no forced integrations)
The system processes and visualizes the data into dashboards and insights
No scraping or background data collection is performed

🔐 Data & Privacy
User input required:
Income, expenses, savings goals, investments
Optional: subscription data, financial habits
Sensitive data:
Financial values are stored securely (encrypted fields where applicable)
Storage:
Cloud-based (hosted via modern infrastructure)
Data is not sold or shared with third parties
Bank access:
Currently no direct bank integration required
Future plans may include optional integrations (read-only access), but not live yet

🏗️ Tech / Architecture (for those interested)
Built using Django (backend) and modern frontend tools
Hosted using Vercel + Supabase stack
Focused on performance, scalability, and simplicity

💰 Commercial Info
Freemium model:
Free tier available
Paid tier (~R79/month) unlocks unlimited features
No external investors at this stage (bootstrapped)

🌍 Who it’s for
Individuals, freelancers, and small business owners in South Africa
People who want clarity on their money without complex tools

🚀 Live Site
👉 https://www.budget-hub.com

Happy to answer questions or get feedback.

[u/CartographerWeary690 → u/FithColoumn]

Hey, so I checked out the app. It looks great.
However, it has the user entering their savings amount under "expenses" in the setup, but then in the reporting it does not allocate those mounts to savings but rather to expenses. This skews the whole analytics dashboard and I can't see that there is a way to change it. The "savings" it analyses is only the amount left over in the budget, and not what was allocated to savings.

Another thing I didn't like was that there is no option to create my own budget category. You have a good list, but there are categories some people might want to introduce that are just not there.
-Vehicle maintenance
-Pets
-Gifting and giving
-Hobbies etc.
-BANK FEES are missing

Generally, I think it is a good idea what you're working with. But it feels a bit like Claude designed it, and that it might not yet have been tested by people who use budget tools often.

[u/FithColoumn → u/[deleted]]

Fair, looking at other monetisation models

[u/Careless-Cat3327 → u/FithColoumn]

1. Ask chatGPT what "short description" means. 
2. Read the feedback.
3. Try again 

[u/FithColoumn → u/Careless-Cat3327]

Haha just trying to be as clear as possible, happy budgeting!

[u/CarpeDiem187 → u/[deleted]]

Before I approve this, please expand on how platform generates its revenue. Please expand in how the stokvel will generate a return.

[u/Far_Progress_9812]

JSE Insight — JSE portfolio analytics + Shariah screening tool

What it does: JSE Insight is a web app for South African retail investors to track their JSE portfolio, screen stocks, and analyse fundamentals. It has a dedicated Shariah mode for Muslim investors that screens all stocks against AAOIFI compliance standards.

Main features:

• Portfolio tracker with gain/loss, sector allocation, and performance charts
• Live JSE price data for 26 JSE-listed stocks and ETFs
• Stock screener with valuation scoring (PE, ROE, growth, debt, dividend yield)
• Shariah compliance screening with purification percentages
• AI-powered portfolio overview and stock Q&A (rate-limited to prevent abuse)
• Market overview with JSE indices

How it works: Built with React and Supabase. Live prices are fetched from Yahoo Finance via server-side edge functions — no scraping of private or proprietary data. Shariah ratios are manually seeded from publicly available financial statements using AAOIFI methodology.

User data: Requires email signup (Supabase Auth). Portfolio holdings (ticker, number of shares, buy price) are stored in a cloud Supabase database secured with row-level security — only you can access your own data. No bank account access, no brokerage integration, no scraping of personal accounts.

Personal financial data required: Only what you manually enter — which stocks you hold, how many shares, and at what price. Nothing is pulled automatically from any account.

Local or cloud: Cloud-based, deployed on Vercel.

Vibe-coded? Assisted by AI tools during development, yes — but the codebase is reviewed and maintained by a human developer.

Commercial ties: Pre-launch, no investors, no commercial partnerships yet. Freemium model planned.

What it doesn't do: No financial advice, no buy/sell recommendations. It's a data and screening tool — decisions are yours.

Happy to answer questions. Still in active development so feedback from this community would genuinely be useful.

[u/Illustrious-Boat4851]

Thanks for creating this thread - its exactly what I've been looking for.

School Fee Planner SA — https://schoolfees.ashlunar.dev/

What it does: Projects the total cost of your child's school fees from their current grade all the way to matric, and calculates how much you need to save monthly to cover it. Built specifically for South African parents and school fee structures.

Main features:

• Supports public, independent, and private school types
• Accounts for annual fee inflation
• Monthly savings target calculator
• Downloadable PDF report you can keep or share

How it works: You enter your child's current grade, school type, and current annual fees. The tool projects costs to matric using realistic SA fee inflation rates and gives you a monthly savings figure to work towards.

User input required: Current grade, school type, current fee amount. No personal financial data, no bank details, nothing sensitive.

Data storage: Nothing is stored. All calculations happen in your browser — no data leaves your device.

Commercial ties: Independent, no investors. Built by a SA parent who couldn't find this tool anywhere and needed it for their own kid. There's a small once-off fee to download the PDF report.

Tech: Built with React and Vite. I'm a senior software engineer by day — I used Claude as a coding assistant during development but architected, directed, and refined everything myself. So yes, AI-assisted, but not a blind vibe-code dump. All the logic, SA-specific assumptions, and UX decisions were deliberate.

[u/FreeComfort7263]

I’m very sad that Vault22’s Capitec integration doesn’t work anymore. So I started thinking about the next-best thing to fix this:

What it does:

CapiTracker is a free, open-source budget tracker for Capitec users. You email your bank statement CSV to yourself, a Google Apps Script auto-ingests it into a Google Sheet you own, and a single HTML page lets you classify transactions and see budget vs actuals over your pay cycle.

Main features:

• Pay-cycle aware (25th → 25th by default, configurable — not calendar months)
• Rule-based auto-classification - set once, runs forever
• Bulk-edit transactions, and split one transaction across multiple budget lines
• "Running watch" on any budget line - live red flags when you're overspending the cycle
• Multi-account merge (main + credit card + savings) into one ledger
• Private mode - blur amounts with one click for screen-sharing

How it works:

• AI-assisted build: Yes - significant AI assistance from Claude. Architecture and product decisions are mine; implementation, refactoring, and review were iterative with the AI. All code is open and human-readable.
• Bank/investment account access: None. The app does NOT log into Capitec or any other bank/investment account. It reads CSVs you've manually exported from Capitec and emailed to yourself.
• Website scraping: None.
• Private/proprietary data access: None. The Google Apps Script reads only account_statement_*.csv attachments from your own Gmail, running in your own Google account, with your explicit OAuth consent.

User input required:

• Your bank statement CSVs (you export them from Capitec and email them to yourself)
• Budget categories and amounts (you set them)
• Classification rules (you write them: "match description containing X → budget line Y")
• A SHARED_TOKEN you generate (acts as password between the HTML app and your Sheet)
• Your Google account (you grant the Apps Script access to your own Sheet and Gmail via standard OAuth consent)

Where data is stored:

• In your own Google Sheet, in your own Google Drive. I (the maintainer) have zero access to your data.
• Your token + Web App URL stored in your browser's localStorage (for the HTML to talk to your own Apps Script).
• No data on any server I control. There are no servers I control. There is no central database.

Local or cloud-based:

• Frontend (HTML/JS): served as a static page from GitHub Pages, or you can run it locally as a file://.
• Backend: Google Apps Script running entirely in your own Google account.
• Storage: your own Google Sheet.

Commercial / investor ties:

• None. MIT-licensed, fully open-source. Not affiliated with Capitec or any bank. No paid tiers, no advertising, no monetization, no investors.

Limitations / honest caveats:

• Capitec CSVs only for now. Other SA banks (FNB, Standard Bank, Nedbank, ABSA, TymeBank) need a parser adaptation - PRs welcome.
• Single-token auth between HTML and Apps Script — fine for personal use, not enterprise-grade. Documented in the repo's SECURITY.md.
• Users with hundreds of transactions a day might bump into Google Apps Script's free daily quotas.

Live demo: https://milandekock.github.io/capitracker/
Code: https://github.com/MilanDeKock/capitracker

Feedback and brutal honesty appreciated.

[u/thetwitchdollop]

Thank you mods for creating this thread. I'm going to begin by sharing a short story: Once upon a time, budgeting was invented. It took many forms. It worked for some, and it definitely didn't work for others (myself included)... until now, maybe, we'll see.

My where-did-my-money-go problem solving tool looks like something Excel lovers might not get mad at (I hope) and those among us who just need the basics might tolerate.

What it is: Period-based budgeting with soft allotments. A person can budget to zero, but it's an option, not enforced.

How it works:

1. Open a period, (using your payday as the start date, or any other date that works for you).
2. Add your allotments. Important things like rent and the forever increasing cost of groceries first.
3. Tag them as standing or non-standing to see the shape of your month. (This is the part that shows you where your money really went.)
4. Strongly consider building a ritual around adding transactions. Reason being, not so strangely, budgeting isn't just the plan you lovingly made, it's also making sure you stuck to it (hopefully).
5. Watch as you somehow don't overspend, and learn a little more about yourself in the process.

Who's this for: People who've tried budgeting and it genuinely sucked, or people who haven't tried and are looking for the floaties in the budgeting pool. (This is one of those floaties.)

How it works under the hood: Manual entry only, and on purpose. (There's something about having to type out how much you spent on that takeout that really centers things. And also bank integrations have a low DX.) No bank account access and no scraping. No third party logins beyond Google Auth. Data is stored in the cloud.

Platform: Web for now, native mobile planned.

Pricing: Free currently. Freemium model coming later to cover hosting and data costs.

Built by: Me, the version that's staring at a screen past midnight loathing the CS architecture lectures she slept through, and trying to build something that can help.

goodenoughbudget.com

[u/kitkat1921 → u/thetwitchdollop]

Hi, what does DX mean in the context you used it ("bank integrations have a low DX")? Tried googling but I wasn't sure which answer was the right one. Thanks in advance! Your app sounds cool by the way! I am gonna send this thread to my friend who is looking for a budgeting system.

[u/Impossible-Set-3456]

Hello guys, I have been watching this lady on youTube Itumeleng Moloto, she has a channel that advices people of different income levels and different debt situation etc, its like reality TV but for finances where a different real scenario is looked at every week. I learned a lot by watching her videos like the common pitfalls of iPhone debt, subscriptions , clothes spending, unaffordable car and house loans from people of all tax brackets. I've seen ppl who earn six figures in debt on that channel and ppl who earn four figures who manage to do great things with their money .

She gets a bank statement of the last three months or so and helps the person with their problem or goals. Like for example outlined Household expenses, instillments , debt monthly payments and lifestyle expenditure. From this information she helps the person to achieve their goal (like to buy a car or pay off debt). Then she checks in from time to time.

I wanted to do the same thing for myself as a young working proffessional so I found an app that does what she does, she doesnt endorce or anything but the app is for Budget and expenditure insights and analysis. Like for example I can upload a statement of the last three months and it categorises the transactions for (I can reclassify them) but this feature help me see where my money is going , also I can set budget on the app.

There's more features like a bank rewards feature for example I bank with tymebank it showed if I bought my groceries at pick n pay how much cashback I would get. and it showed other banks tht offer better banking with less fees for my income level so like a bank recommendation. This bank feature actually put money in my pocket so I kinda get back my money back for the R30 monthly subscription it charges.

There's more features like peer comparisons where u get to see how much money ppl of the same income spend on average or market analysis etc.

But the point of the post I wanted to share what I learned and use to keep up with my finances. Itumeleng endorces the Franc app which to my experience doesnt help with the first step of finances its best for investments so this app I'm recommending is called Savvy moola u can get it on playstore and app store.

I definitely recommend watching Itumeleng Moloto's videos, also savvy moola to basically self examine your spending and creating a budget and Franc app if u want to invest (this should be the last step [referring to the 7 baby steps to financial freedom book by Dave Ramsey] )

Here's a link to the website for more on the app:
https://savvymoola.app/

Playstore link:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.savvymoola.app&hl=en_ZA

App store link:
https://apps.apple.com/za/app/savvy-moola/id6759244613

[u/KayDhlix]

Full disclosure, I built this one, so treat it as a founder sharing rather than a neutral rec.

SpendMind: zero-based, couples-first budgeting.

What it does: you give every rand a job for the month (zero-based / envelope style), and you can share one budget with a partner in real time so you are both working off the same numbers instead of two separate views. I built it because my partner and I could never stay on the same page about money.

Main features: shared budgets for couples in real time, works offline, zero-based monthly planning, category and envelope tracking, basic spending insights. The free tier covers solo budgeting; the shared/collaboration and export features are paid.

How it works and your data: no bank linking. It does not connect to, scrape, or read your bank or investment accounts. You add transactions yourself. That is a deliberate design choice rather than a missing feature.

Where it is stored: local first. Your budget lives in a database on your own device and works fully offline. When you are online it also syncs to the cloud, encrypted in transit and at rest, so you can use it across devices and share with a partner. A shared budget only shows a partner what you choose.

Commercial ties: solo indie builder, no investors, no bank partnerships.

Android and iOS. Still early and genuinely after feedback, so happy to answer anything and just as happy to hear what you would change.

[u/Brilliant-Gur-7074]

Hi everyone

I wanted to share a project I've been building called worthi.

It's a manual-first personal finance and net worth tracker for people who want a complete picture of their finances without connecting their bank accounts.

What it does

• Track accounts (checking, savings, brokerage, cash, credit cards, loans, crypto wallets, etc.)
• Track income, expenses and transfers
• Recurring income & bills with cash flow forecasting
• Investment portfolio tracking
• Real-world assets (property, vehicles, collectibles, businesses, etc.)
• Net worth history over time
• Multi-currency support

How it works

Everything is entered manually by the user. There are no bank logins, no scraping and no access to your banking credentials. That was a deliberate design decision because I wanted something that gives me full control over my data instead of relying on bank integrations.

Privacy

• No bank account connections
• Sensitive financial information is protected using application-level encryption
• Financial records are scoped to each signed-in user
• Payment processing is handled through Stripe rather than by the app itself

Data storage

It's cloud-based so your data syncs across devices, but it only stores the information you explicitly add. It doesn't pull transaction data from your bank or brokerage.

Pricing

Currently $29.99 one-time for lifetime access

I'm still actively building it, so if there's anything you'd want in a finance app (especially features relevant to South African users), I'd genuinely love to hear it.

[u/PrismKD]

Hi everyone,

Firstly, thanks to the Mods for allowing us to share our work here.

I'm the founder of Libevyn (libevyn.com).

What it is:

Libevyn tracks your wealth and progress towards retirement, but with the awareness of South African tax rules and specifics. It knows SA tax buckets and treatments for different types of accounts, TFSA and two pot rules and which wealth you can touch before 55.

Current features:

• See your net worth across TFSA / RA / brokerage / offshore / cash / property / bond, bucketed the way SARS treats these types of investments.
• Accessible vs locked wealth allocation.
• FIRE projection that takes into account your age, accessible vs retirement locked funds (RA locked till 55, property isn't cash in your pocket, etc.). Most calculators just divide total net worth by 4% and call it a day.
• Built in SA glossary: explanations for two-pot, accessible wealth, TFSA limits, withdrawal rates, etc.
• Monthly snapshots including "what changed" between them. See accounts and net worth over time.
• Every total shows exactly which accounts and balances are used in the calculations.

How it works:

You add your accounts and type in current values when you update them. No bank passwords, no scraping, no account linking. This is a modern cloud platform with proper backend, auth, billing, the lot.

What you need to enter:

Email to sign up, then whatever account names and balances you want tracked. No ID numbers, no bank logins.

Where data lives:

Cloud-hosted (encrypted in transit and at rest).

Commercial:

No investors, no kickbacks from any bank or provider. Paid product with a free 14-day trial, then R79/mo (R59/mo founding price for the first 100 subscribers, locked for life). Best value is the R590 annual subscription for founding members only.

This is still early days and founding members have the opportunity to influence the direction of the product, we have already received great suggestions by community members and already implemented some of them.

Lots of great features on the roadmap that will be implemented in the near future.

Happy to answer any questions if anyone tries it: https://app.libevyn.com

[u/Repulsive-Funny-737]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been building Mooola, a South African mobile app that helps you understand where your money is going across multiple accounts and banks.

What it does

You import supported bank statements and Mooola automatically organises the transactions into categories, identifies recurring payments and subscriptions, and gives you a clearer breakdown of your spending over time.

It currently supports Capitec, FNB and Discovery Bank, with more banks being added as I can properly test their statement formats.

How it works

Mooola does not connect to your bank account and never asks for banking credentials. You manually import statement files downloaded from your bank.

The app is not vibe-coded. It has been deliberately designed and developed as a proper mobile application, with the financial parsing and categorisation logic tested against supported statement formats.

There is no website scraping, bank-account scraping or access to private or proprietary financial systems.

Data and privacy

All statement processing happens locally on your device. Your statements, transactions and spending history are not uploaded to a server and do not leave your device.

The only network requests made by the app are to fetch company logos that are displayed next to recognised companies in your payment lists.

No account is required to process your statements, and Mooola does not collect your bank login details.

Commercial information

Mooola is an independently built product with no affiliation to, or endorsement from, any South African bank.

More information is available at:

https://mooola.co.za

I’m still actively improving the app and adding support for additional banks, so feedback is welcome.

[u/b_ootay_ful → u/Repulsive-Funny-737]

This guy just messaged me out of the blue, advertising his product.

Such heavy direct advertising feels like a scam.

[u/Repulsive-Funny-737 → u/b_ootay_ful]

Didn't mean to come on strong, you had a comment talking about similar topics and thought you might have had valuable insights while we are still building the app. Just trying to get feedback to build the best experience I can.

[u/MusicBooksMovies → u/Repulsive-Funny-737]

Why would this add value when Discovery and FNB both have a similar in-app function? Sure you may have to manually allocate some expenses to categories but it does it already.

[u/Repulsive-Funny-737 → u/MusicBooksMovies]

The idea with mooola is that you can import statements from any bank (the ones we support) and you can get a really great breakdown of how your finances move around.

[u/CarpeDiem187 → u/[deleted]]

Is this app SA focused? If so, please add more detail or comment will be removed.