Track what you spend. Stay on budget. No fuss.
EZ Budget does not give financial advice. It simply helps you keep an eye on what you spend and stay inside a limit you set yourself. If something isn't working the way you expected, the answers below should help.
Thank you for installing EZ Budget! It answers two questions: where did my money go? and how much do I have left?
The app works in one of two ways, and you choose which.
This is how EZ Budget starts out. You write down what you spend, and the app adds it up. There is nothing to set up: open it and start.
You decide on an amount first, say $1,000 for a holiday, and EZ Budget subtracts each purchase from it, so you always know what is left. The piggy bank on screen slowly empties as you spend. Go to the Settings screen, switch on "Track My Budget," and enter your amount.
Six screens sit along the bottom of the app: Spend It! (where you write down a purchase), Details (the list of everything you have spent), Places (a map of where you spent it), Categories (charts by type of spending), Settings (your budget, your PIN and everything else) and Help.
Every purchase gets written down on the "Spend It!" screen, and it takes a few seconds:
If tapping Save doesn't seem to do anything, check the amount, which can't be zero. A description is optional, but an amount is not.
The Details screen lists every purchase, with the date and time in your own time zone and format. A bar sits at the top of the list and stays there as you scroll, showing the number of Entries and the Total for whatever is on screen - so with a filter on, it counts only what the filter left. Made a mistake, or returned an item? Swipe across the row and delete it. Your totals correct themselves straight away, exactly as though the purchase had never happened.
The same bar puts the list in order. Tap Date, Category or Amount to sort by it, and tap the same heading again to turn the order around; a small arrow shows which one is in charge. Date starts with your oldest purchase, Category goes alphabetically with unlabeled purchases under Uncategorized, and Amount starts with the biggest - the quickest way to see where the money really went. Your choice is remembered the next time you open the app, and sorting never hides anything or changes a total.
Give yourself a spending limit and let EZ Budget count down from it. It is handy for a holiday, a weekend away, or the weekly shop.
Switching modes clears your list. Turning budget tracking on or off wipes the purchases recorded so far, so you start with a clean slate. EZ Budget always warns you first and gives you the chance to back out.
The coins in the piggy bank drop one level for every tenth of your budget you spend, giving ten levels from full to empty, so you don't have to read a number to see how you're doing. The message on the "Spend It!" screen is color coded too: green when more than half your budget is still there, yellow when less than half is left, and red once you've gone over, showing you by how much.
Give your phone a shake. If you still have money left in your budget, it plays a cheerful jingle. If you've overspent, or you're not tracking a budget at all, it stays quiet. Like every sound in the app, it respects your phone's silent switch.
You can come back and set a different amount whenever you like, which is useful if you decide to allow yourself a little more halfway through a trip. What's left recalculates immediately, and so does deleting a purchase from the Details screen.
EZ Budget can quietly note where each purchase happened and save the address alongside it. Months later, "$42" means a lot more when you can see it was the petrol station on the corner.
Purchases with a location get a small pin next to them on the Details screen. Tap one to see it on a map, along with how accurate that location was. The Places screen puts all of them on a single map. If you've zoomed or dragged the map and lost your pins, tap Center map to bring everything back into view. You can also switch the map between Standard, Satellite and Hybrid along the bottom.
The Places screen only shows purchases that saved a location. The quickest way to tell is the Details screen: if a purchase has the small pin beside it, it's on the map. If it doesn't, it isn't.
A purchase can end up with no location for a few ordinary reasons: Use Location was switched off in Settings; location is turned off for EZ Budget in your phone's own Settings app; your phone couldn't work out where you were in the few seconds the app waits, perhaps indoors or with a poor signal; or you recorded it before you started using location at all.
Nothing is lost either way. Those purchases are still listed on Details, still counted in your categories, and still part of your budget. They simply don't appear on the map.
Phones need a moment to work out exactly where they are. If you record a purchase in the first seconds after opening the app, or you're indoors where the signal is poor, the location saved may be a rough one. The longer the app is open, the sharper it gets. That's also why several purchases made close together can end up sharing a single pin on the map. On the Details screen they're still listed separately.
EZ Budget only looks up your location while you're actually using it, and only for a few seconds around the moment you tap Save. It gets ready as soon as you open the "Spend It!" screen so the pin is usually there the instant you save, though it may take a second or two to appear in your list.
If you leave the app immediately after saving, it's allowed about half a minute to finish writing down the address, and then it stops. That half minute is only ever spent finishing the purchase you just saved. It never tracks you as you go about your day. If you close the app before it finishes, that purchase simply has no location, which is perfectly fine.
The first time you open EZ Budget it asks permission to use your location. Even after you say yes, you can switch Use Location off on the Settings screen at any time. New purchases are then saved with no location at all, and the app stops asking your phone where you are. Turn it back on whenever you like.
Labeling a purchase (Groceries, Gas, Coffee) turns a long list into a clear picture of where the money actually goes.
Pick a category while you're saving a purchase on the "Spend It!" screen. The Categories screen then adds up your spending for each one and draws it as a chart. Use the switch at the top to flip between a Bar chart and a Pie chart, whichever you find easier to read.
Open Settings and tap Manage Categories. From there you can add new ones, rename what's there, or retire the ones you no longer use.
Renaming takes effect everywhere at once. Call "Food" something else and every past purchase follows along by itself, so there's nothing to tidy up afterwards.
Retiring one (swipe across it in Manage Categories) does not delete anything. Your old purchases keep their category and still appear in your history and your charts under that name. It simply stops being offered when you record something new. Add it back later and it picks up right where it left off.
Sometimes you only care about one part of your spending, such as the groceries. EZ Budget can hide everything else.
On the Details, Categories or Places screen, tap Categories in the bar at the top and tick as many as you want. There's an Uncategorized option for anything you never labeled. Your list, your charts and your map all narrow to match. Because all three screens share one choice, setting it in one place sets it everywhere.
Once you've picked something, a small funnel icon with a number appears at the top of the screen. Tap it to switch the filter off and see everything again, then tap it once more to bring your selection straight back. You never have to pick the same categories twice.
Your chosen categories, and whether the filter is currently on or off, are still there the next time you open EZ Budget. You can also narrow things down by place instead, by circling part of the map (see below). The two work together, so you can look at just the groceries, bought in just one neighborhood.
How much did that weekend in the old town actually cost? Rather than hunting through a list, you can draw a circle around a part of the map with your finger, and EZ Budget will show you only the money you spent inside it.
Your finger needs to travel far enough to enclose a real patch of the map. A single tap or a tiny scribble isn't enough to make an area, so just draw around again, a little wider.
The moment you tap Done, the map hides every pin outside your loop.
A small globe icon with a number now appears on the Details and Categories screens as well. Tap it and your list and your charts narrow to the same patch of map, so you can see the total you spent there, and what you spent it on. Tap it again to go back to everything.
Turning the globe icon off just sets your area aside; it stays saved so you can switch it back on later. When you want it gone for good, return to the Places screen and tap the red Clear Area button, which is the only place an area can be erased.
Only purchases that saved a location can sit inside an area, so anything recorded while "Use Location" was switched off won't be found by an area filter. Your drawn area is remembered the next time you open EZ Budget.
EZ Budget has an optional lock, so you can hand your phone to someone else without letting them change the rules. Say you give your child $50 to spend at the fair: with the lock on, they can still record everything they buy and watch the piggy bank empty, but they can't quietly raise the budget, delete a purchase, or switch the whole thing off.
To unlock, switch Locked back off and enter your PIN. Once you have a PIN, a Change PIN option appears just below. You enter the old one before choosing a new one.
While it's on, these need your PIN first: changing the budget amount with Set Budget!; switching Track My Budget on or off; switching Use Location on or off; All Clear, which erases everything; and deleting a purchase by swiping on the Details screen. Recording new purchases carries on as normal.
Your PIN cannot be recovered. To keep it safe, EZ Budget never stores your actual PIN, only a scrambled version of it that never leaves your phone. Nobody, including the developer, can look it up or reset it. If you forget it, the only way back in is to delete the app and install it again, and that erases everything: every purchase, your budget and all your settings, permanently. Please choose a PIN you'll remember.
When you're counting down a budget, the piggy bank has ten levels. Each step down means you've spent another tenth of your budget.
Your budget is still zero, so every purchase counts as going over. Go to Settings, type the amount you want to allow yourself, and tap Set Budget!
Shake your phone. If there's money left in your budget, it plays a jingle. The message on the "Spend It!" screen also changes color: green when more than half is left, yellow when less than half is left, and red once you've gone over. The jingle only plays while you still have money and you're tracking a budget. Otherwise, shaking stays silent.
EZ Budget respects your phone's silent switch. If your phone is on silent, nothing will play even when "Sound Effects" is switched on. Take the phone off silent, and check that "Sound Effects" is on in Settings.
The amount can't be zero. The description is optional. The amount is not.
Always your own local time, in your own date and time format.
Yes. On the Details screen, tap Amount in the bar at the top of the list and the largest purchase goes to the top. Tap it a second time to start from the smallest instead.
The Details screen keeps whichever order you last chose, even after you close the app. Tap Date in the bar at the top to go back to the order you bought them in, or tap it twice to see the most recent first.
No. Your purchases and their locations are stored on your phone. EZ Budget does not send your spending or your history to the developer or to anyone else. When you use the map, Apple's own system services handle turning coordinates into an address.
That's completely fine. Switch "Use Location" off on the Settings screen, and the app won't ask your phone where you are. You can also turn location off for EZ Budget in your phone's own Settings app. If you do, the Use Location switch in EZ Budget shows as off and can't be tapped, with a link to open your phone's Settings. Your own choice is remembered, so turning the permission back on restores it.
Barely at all. EZ Budget asks for your location only while you're saving a purchase, and stops as soon as it has an answer.
There is one exception. If you leave the app in the seconds right after saving, EZ Budget is allowed up to about half a minute in the background to finish that one lookup and write down the address, and then it stops for good. It's finishing the job you started, not watching where you go. Force-quitting the app cancels even that.
Apart from those few seconds, it does no location work at all. It never wakes itself up and never asks where you are while you're not using it.
If you bought everything in the same place, such as one shop or one restaurant, they all share the same spot, so they stack up as a single pin. Open the Details screen to see each one on its own.
The Places screen only shows purchases that saved a location. Check the Details screen: purchases with a small pin beside them are on the map, and those without one aren't. That usually means Use Location was off, location is switched off for EZ Budget in your phone's Settings app, or your phone couldn't work out where you were in time. They're still counted everywhere else.
Tap Categories at the top of the Details, Categories or Places screen and tick the ones you want. Your choice applies to all three screens at once, and a funnel icon appears so you can switch it off and on later without picking again.
On the Places screen, tap the lasso Draw Area button, draw a loop around that part of the map with your finger, then tap Done. A globe icon then appears on the Details and Categories screens so you can apply the same area there.
No. The funnel icon and the globe icon only switch filtering on and off. Your chosen categories and your drawn area stay saved until you change them yourself.
Go to the Places screen and tap the red Clear Area button. That's the only place it can be removed.
Renaming updates them all straight away. Retiring one (swipe across it in Manage Categories) only removes it from the choices offered for new purchases. Your old purchases keep it, and it still appears in your history and charts.
It lives on the Settings screen, not the Categories screen. Open Settings and tap Manage Categories.
EZ Budget doesn't collect personal data of any kind. See the Privacy Policy for the full details.
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