Black Student Finance Manager

The program will input the user's income based on their paydays, the costs of living, as well as the cost of a supplementary object that the user wants in the future, and calculate the time to get it.

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Inspiration

Financial issues are a big problem with people of black descent. A major reason for this is because a lot of black people are just uneducated in economics. There aren't many widely known options that help black people with managing their money. For this reason we created BudgetBoi as a simple, easy to use way to manage finances.

What it does

BudgetBoi is an app that allows users to manage their finances, in order to save money to get things they want. This works by first having the user input when they get paid and how much they get paid, as well as their cost of living and daily expenses. The user can also input what item they want in the future. Once that is set up, BudgetBoi calculates the time it will take to get the item and let the user know how much they need to save, when they need to save and best time to spend for them.

How we built it

Our application is coding using Java, one of the most powerful programming languages in the world. Heavily utilizing its object-oriented programming functions, BudgetBoi creates a single object that is able to carry out all of the algorithms and functions needed for the application to calculate finances. BudgetBoi also has a class tailored to make a graphical user interface, making the application much easier to use.

Challenges we ran into

Our main challenge was the lack of time. We planned on adding much more functions than there is currently. BudgetBoi is already quite powerful as it is right now, but given enough time, we plan on adding even more functions for its utility. Finding a suitable collaborative Java compiler was also rather difficult, as there were a huge variety to choose from, but ultimately we used CodeCollab.io for our program. It was easy and compiled Java files the way it does with conventional compilers, so that solved that problem. Another problem was that we couldn't get the calendar GUI to work, but we plan on fixing that given enough time. Finally, although the algorithm is perfectly capable of handling multiple paydays per week, the GUI was somehow unable to get the inputs required to change the paydays, so we just manually set it to a specific weekday.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

BudgetBoi was our first ever Java application that is able to tie into modern world issues. Although we have done projects that can do a variety of other tasks, BudgetBoi tied into serious issues that can be solved by electronic tools. Seeing that commercial programs not dissimilar to BudgetBoi were uncommon, we decided to make an easily accessible Java tool to help manage black students in need of financial support.

What we learned

Programming a largescale Java project is no small feat. Not only does it require a rather large amount of coding knowledge, but it also requires an open mindset able to absorb information that might not necessarily be limited to only coding. BudgetBoi also required some other non-coding work, like time management, brainstorming ideas, and the addition or removal of certain features.

What's next for Black Student Finance Manager

One goal is to add an “extra events” function, where the program is able to input specific dates in which the user gains or loses money, depending on their input. This vastly improves the application’s function, as it allows much more diversity, like gifts, loans, birthday parties, and more.

Chosen Challenges

Black Hack Challenge TD Bank Hack U of T Faculty Challenge Overall Challenge

HOW TO RUN

Currently, the way we ran it was using a basic java file. Make a java project in a java editor, and copy and paste the Finance.java class and the HackathonWork.java class into the project. Finally, run the HackathonWork.java as the driver class.

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