SmartCents

Inspiration

We wanted to build something practical and impactful for young people learning to manage money. Many budgeting apps feel overwhelming, so we created SmartCents — a simple, gamified financial dashboard that encourages saving, spending awareness, and goal-setting.

What We Learned

How to quickly build and deploy a project using Next.js and Vercel.

Managing state between dashboards, goals, and transactions.

Creating a smooth user experience by combining charts, score tracking, and challenges.

How We Built It

We used:

Next.js for both frontend and backend routes (API endpoints).

Chart.js for visualizing spending and savings.

LocalStorage for persisting user data without a database.

OpenAI’s API to generate personalized mentor tips and chatbot responses.

Challenges We Faced

Learning Next.js almost from scratch in a 10-hour sprint.

Collaborating as a team using Live Share, since not everyone was comfortable with Git-based workflows.

Debugging deployment issues under time pressure.

The Result

We ended up with a functional financial mentor app where users can:

Add and track income/expenses.

Set financial goals and monitor progress.

See their Independence Score update dynamically.

Receive AI-powered financial tips and chatbot advice.

Repo: https://github.com/pvpcoder/SmartCents

TO ACTUALLY USE OUR WEBSITE

We wanted to deploy it but ran into a bunch of problems so we found an alternate way! Follow this:

Step 1: Make sure you have Live Share and Live Server Downloaded and paste this link: https://prod.liveshare.vsengsaas.visualstudio.com/join?6A808A7FE4E57339ACE0F69F5E515A994209 into the Live Share! This will take you to a read only version of our project folder.

Step 2: You will see a open Live Server -> Open it and you will have full access to our website and its features.

If you are still struggling to open in we have attached a video on how to do so in the "Try it out" links

**A Note: If the Live Server or Share doesn't open then assume my PC closed and the live server ended. In that case it will not open :(. You can contact me at pranayvparikh@gmail.com and I can re-open the server for you to try.