Budget Buddies

Inspiration

Budget Buddies was inspired by Duolingo’s notification system, which has proven to boost daily active users (DAU) and engagement through playful, relatable nudges. We wanted to bring that same energy to financial accountability, transforming saving money into an approachable and even fun experience. By introducing AI-powered, customizable personas like Bestie, Coach, and the Realist, our goal was to create a financial buddy that users would actually enjoy interacting with. We also took some inspiration from Spotify's Wrapped Feature for our Weekly Digest in order to make insights more engaging.

What It Does

Budget Buddies helps users save money by making financial accountability more human and engaging.

Users choose a persona—Bestie, Coach, or the Realist—for personalized guidance and nudges.
Smart notifications (powered by AI) keep users on track by analyzing spending patterns, predicting expenses, and sending location-aware reminders.
Features like morning check-ins, weekly digests, and saving insights help users stay mindful of their spending and progress toward savings goals.
Integration with banks and calendars makes it easy to automate tracking and provide meaningful financial advice without manual input.

How We Built It

We split our workflow into clear phases to ensure efficient collaboration:

Planning: Spent the first 3-4 hours brainstorming and creating a roadmap for research, branding, and user flow mapping.
Low-Fidelity Wireframes: Designed rough concepts in Procreate to experiment with layouts and key features.
High-Fidelity Prototype: Created the final prototype in Figma, focusing on clean UI, intuitive flows, and engaging visuals.
Collaborative Roles: Divided tasks—some team members focused on research and personas, while others handled branding and flows. Constant communication kept us aligned throughout.

Challenges We Ran Into

Survey Objectives: Defining the objective of our survey and translating results into actionable design decisions.
Visualizing New Data: Designing layouts for statistics and insights we hadn’t worked with before required creative problem-solving and iterations.
Graphic Style: Aligning the graphic style with the app's tone (fun yet functional) was a challenge that demanded consistent feedback and tweaks.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

Developing a cohesive branding and design framework in a limited timeframe.
Translating user research into features like smart notifications and morning check-ins that address pain points like impulse spending and lack of motivation.
Designing over 100 screens💀
Waking up in the morning
Our beautiful prototype

What We Learned

The importance of research-driven design to ensure features align with user needs and pain points.
How to prioritize saving-oriented strategies over traditional spending trackers to better match user goals.
The value of planning and role delegation to maximize efficiency during hackathons.

What's Next for Budget Buddies

Expand AI Capabilities: Add gamification features like rewards and unlocking new personas for hitting savings milestones.
Community Challenges: Enable users to join group savings goals or compete with friends on leaderboards.
Manual Tracking Options: Make the app more accessible for users who prefer not to connect their bank accounts.
Continuous Improvement: Test our prototype with real users to refine features and ensure the app delivers value in real-life scenarios.

we hope you enjoy!