Pennies Review: Stylish, but Shallow Budgeting Tool

App Name:	Pennies
Platforms:	iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad
Publisher(s):	Austin Sarner
Version Reviewed:	1.1.3
Genre(s):	finance
Release Date:	March 5, 2009 (updated)
Price:	$2.99
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Budgeting is one of those things that will never be pleasant. However, with the help of your iPhone, it’s definitely possible to make the task more approachable and easy to maintain. There are many apps out there promising to take care of all your budgeting needs, but upon perusing them, you’ll find that a few quickly rise to the top. Pennies is one of them. The developer’s name is Austin Sarner, and his app—now a few years old—is still receiving solid reviews due to its simplicity and stylish look. Unlike other budgeting apps that are complex and layered to a flaw, with Pennies you can get the whole story by looking at a single screenshot. There’s not a lot of depth to this tool, but it functions extremely well in tracking a simplified budget. In the end, whether or not your pleased with Pennies will depend entirely on what you’re looking for out of a budgeting application.

Working from a screenshot of the app’s main interface, let’s breakdown what we see. A Meter occupies the left side of the screen, looking very much like a guess gauge—with “F” meaning full and “E” meaning empty. You tap the arrow at the top-right of the screen to adjust your monthly income using a slider. Once you’ve selected the amount you earn in one month, we return to the home screen, where the meter will remain nice and full until you start to make purchases and do damage.

In order for the app to be an effective tool, it’s necessary that you commit to saving receipts and inputting every expense. Let things slip in this area, and you can be sure that the app will quickly be left to languish in your finance folder . . . But once you’ve devoted yourself to slavishly filing every expense, it works like this: Tap the “add expense” button, select a category, and then type in the amount. Once you save the expense, it will automatically be deducted from your monthly income. A readout at the top tells you how much money you’ve spent compared to what you have available for the month, and of course, the gauge on the left is a constant visual reminder of how you’re inching towards empty every time you swipe that plastic.

Besides the basic functionality described above, the additional features of Pennies are surprisingly few. Each expense can be reviewed by tapping the “expenses” tab, a history of previous months is available (in theory, more on that later) by tapping “history,” and the home page provides statistics in the form of how much money you’re spending per day and which categories most often recur.
Perhaps it should be seen as refreshing that Pennies doesn’t attempt to offer any complicated reports, graphs, or separate budget-tracking tools. Certainly, it’s a far cry from what we’ve come to expect from computer programs that rely on heavy math to keep our spending on track. The simple graphic is incredibly easy to understand, and this is a tool that anyone could use to track a budget with no learning curve whatsoever. Think of it as the budgeting tool Apple would have made if they’d included it as a native app: slick and stylish, but perhaps not a whole lot upstairs.

Unfortunately, though Pennies could definitely be used effectively by those looking for a simple tool, it’s become quite clear that the developer is not interested in keeping on track with updates and bug fixes. Certain features, such as the history tab, are unresponsive, and others—like the “export” icon—are simply broken . . . Bearing this abandonment in mind, $2.99 starts to sound like a lot for an application that does far less than it’s 99 cent counterparts.

Still, you know your needs, and perhaps an extremely basic meter resembling a gas-gauge is exactly what it will take for you to stop being poor and hold on to a few dollars each month. That’s exactly what Pennies has to offer. Don’t hold your breath on any updates, fixes, or expansions, as all is quiet on that front. But if you abhor anything resembling math and just want to see something you can understand when it comes to tracking where your money is going—spending $2.99 on Pennies will get you just that.

About the Author

Devin Wieland

 

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