GetYoMoneyUp

Inspiration

GetYoMoneyUp was born out of personal struggles with budgeting and managing personal finances. As teens ourselves, we were shocked to learn that teens spend an average of $2,250 annually—even though fewer than one-third have a paying summer job. We discovered that many of these expenses were driven by impulse buying on platforms like Amazon, which is the most popular choice for spending. With the lack of financial literacy education across American schools, we realized that many young people could benefit from a tool that reminds them to pause and think before making purchases. Our goal with GetYoMoneyUp is to help people save money by making them more aware of their financial decisions.

What It Does

GetYoMoneyUp detects when a user enters an online checkout or shopping cart page and then pops up a message to remind them to consider their financial decisions. The popup displays a series of warnings and prompts the user to reflect on their spending habits. It also includes a "Save for Later" feature that allows users to store the link to a product and return to it later—so they have time to decide if the purchase is truly necessary. Our intention is not to shame users for buying, but to discourage impulsivity and encourage responsible purchase.

How We Built It

We developed GetYoMoneyUp as a Chrome extension using Manifest V3. The project is structured around:

Content Scripts: Injected into pages to detect checkout pages and trigger our popup. Background Service Worker: Manages asynchronous events and storage interactions. Chrome Storage API: Used to store and retrieve "Save for Later" links, allowing users to maintain a list of saved items. Popup UI: Built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, ensuring a modern and responsive design that matches our overall aesthetic.

Challenges We Ran Into

Detecting Checkout Pages: Crafting reliable logic to detect when a user is on a checkout or cart page was challenging due to the variety of e-commerce websites and their different URL structures.

Storage Management: Integrating the Chrome Storage API to persist saved items across sessions required careful testing, especially when dealing with asynchronous callbacks and ensuring data consistency.

User Experience Consistency: Balancing the intrusive nature of popups with the need to deliver a valuable reminder without disrupting the shopping experience was a fine line to walk.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

Seamless Integration: We successfully built an extension that integrates smoothly with various shopping sites, offering timely reminders and helpful financial prompts without being too disruptive.

Clean, Modern UI: Our popup design, built with modern HTML/CSS, provides a visually appealing and intuitive interface for users.

Save-for-Later Feature: Implementing a reliable system for saving and recalling product links has been a key achievement, enabling users to revisit their decisions at their own pace.

What We Learned

Chrome Extension Development: We deepened our understanding of Manifest V3, content scripts, and the new background service worker model.

Asynchronous JavaScript: Handling asynchronous operations and dynamic DOM updates taught us valuable lessons in debugging and event management.

User-Centered Design: Through this project, we learned the importance of balancing functionality with a non-intrusive user experience—especially when dealing with financial decisions.

What's Next for GetYoMoneyUp

Improving Detection Algorithms: Refining our checkout detection logic to cover more websites and edge cases.

Enhanced User Interface: Continuing to polish the popup design based on user feedback, ensuring an even smoother experience. In addition, we hope to expand our UI design to be responsive to multiple age and socioeconomic demographics.

Integrations: Exploring integrations with budgeting tools and financial literacy resources to provide users with actionable insights and further help them manage their spending.

Analytics and Feedback: Incorporating analytics to understand user behavior and gathering feedback to iterate on features for better financial decision support.

Built With

• chromeapi
• css
• figma
• git
• html
• javascript
• manifest