We built the budgeting app we kept failing to use

The problem, stated plainly

You install a budgeting app in January with real intentions. You categorise everything for nine days. Then one evening you are tired, you skip a day, the backlog looks like homework, and you never open it again. By March you could not say where your money went, and the app is still on your phone quietly making you feel bad.

Almost every fix on the market attacks the wrong end of this. They add automatic bank imports, which means handing over your bank login and then correcting a machine's guesses. They add smarter categories, which is more structure to maintain. They add streaks and badges, which is a reminder that you failed.

What we did instead

We made the logging fast enough that there is nothing to fall behind on. Open Wumbi, type the amount, tap Income or Expense. About three seconds, and the screen stays open for the next one. No confirmation screen, no category picker, no Save button, because there is nothing left to confirm.

Instead of categories you type tags as you go, the way you would write a note to yourself. They create themselves. Later a tag map shows you which ones keep moving money together, which is a thing a category list can never tell you.

Why your data stays on your phone

Your transaction history says where you live, what you eat, who you see, what you are worried about and what you are saving for. That is not a normal thing to upload to a stranger's server so that a budgeting app can show you a pie chart.

So Wumbi keeps it on the device, in an encrypted database, and asks for no account at all. You do not need to trust us, because we do not have it.

Premium will offer an encrypted backup and, for people who want automation, an optional bank connection. Both are switches you turn on. Neither is ever a step you are forced through to use the app, and the free version will never require an account.

How Wumbi makes money

The free app is the product, not a trial. It has unlimited transactions, tags, the tag map, 64 currencies, charts, subscriptions and full offline use, with no ads.

Premium adds things for people who have been using Wumbi for months and want more out of it: backup and restore, optional bank sync, import and export, deeper analytics, savings goals, widgets, unlimited wallets and some cosmetic fun. Nothing that is basic sits behind it. Pricing lands with the app.

Who is behind it

Wumbi is a small independent project, not a venture-funded startup with a growth target. The operating entity is not published yet. Ask us at support@wumbi.app and we will tell you.

There are no investors to satisfy, which is the reason we can afford to not want your bank login.

Where it is going

iPhone and Android first, in seven languages, with full right-to-left layout for Arabic. Then premium, then whatever the first few thousand people actually ask for. If you want to be told once, on the day it launches, the waitlist is on the front page and it sends exactly one email.