All work

2026 · Privacy-first budgeting app

Skip

A personal finance app that tracks spending, bills, and balances without ever connecting to your bank.

Role
Product Designer & Developer
Team
Solo, end-to-end
Timeline
Ongoing
Platform
iOS & Android
Skip — Privacy-first budgeting app

Overview

The short version

Most budgeting apps ask for your bank login on the first screen. For a lot of people — especially immigrants, students, and anyone who has been burned by a data breach — that is a hard no. Skip is a privacy-first budgeting app built on one promise: your money, your privacy. You track spending, bills, subscriptions, card balances, and account balances in one place, and none of it ever touches a bank connection.

Challenge

Budgeting apps trade privacy for convenience

I started from my own frustration and conversations with friends who had stopped using finance apps. The pattern was consistent:

  • Bank linking is a blocker. People abandon at the “connect your account” step, either out of distrust or because their bank isn’t supported.
  • Manual apps feel like homework. The ones that skip bank linking usually dump you on an empty ledger with no guidance.
  • The wrong number is on the home screen. Total balance is not the question people actually have. “How much can I still spend this month?” is.
  • Bills sneak up. Subscriptions and recurring bills are the biggest source of surprise overdrafts.

My role

Owning the product from problem to store build

This is a solo product, so I owned every layer of it:

  • Research & positioning: defined the privacy-first angle and the “Left this month” mental model as the core of the product.
  • Information architecture: four-tab structure (Home, Cards, Receipts, Settings) with a single “+” entry point for everything you add.
  • Onboarding design: a two-screen value proposition, then a persistent “Getting started” checklist that turns an empty app into a guided setup.
  • Visual system: warm off-white canvas, plum brand color, rounded cards, and hand-drawn illustrations to make money feel less clinical.
  • Build: designed in Figma and developed with AI-assisted tooling; running on real devices today.

Solution

Answer the real question first, then guide the rest

The home screen leads with one number — what’s left this month — and everything else on the screen exists to make that number trustworthy.

“Left this month” hero

Income minus expenses minus upcoming bills, with days remaining. One glance answers “am I okay?”

Getting started checklist

Set your pay, add a card, add a bill, add a receipt, turn on reminders. Progress is visible and each step deep-links into the right flow.

Where it goes

Category cards (Monthly bills, Receipts, Subscriptions…) so spending is legible without charts on day one.

Recent + Coming up

A week-by-week view pairs what just happened with what is due next, so bills never surprise you.

Insights

“See the story behind your spending” — patterns and trends once there is enough data, never before.

Sign in your way

Google, Apple, or email — used only to sync across devices and recover your account, never to access a bank.

Impact

Outcome so far

Skip is live on my own devices and in testing with a small group. Early signals from testers:

90% preferred itIn usability tests and review scoring, 90% of participants preferred Skip’s approach to managing their personal finances over the apps they had used before.
Setup in minutesThe checklist gets a new user from empty to a meaningful “Left this month” number in one sitting.
Bills front and center“Coming up” became the most-checked section — the exact anxiety the app was built to remove.
Next upShared budgets for couples, CSV export, and richer Insights once the data model has matured.

Next project

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Contact

Let’s build something people love.

I’m looking for a full-time UI/UX or Product Design role, and I’m happy to talk about contract work too. The fastest way to reach me is email.

LinkedIn Dribbble Résumé (PDF)