BrokeBuddy
Your Buddy for Smart Savings
The problem BrokeBuddy solves
Living in a hostel or shared apartment comes with a unique set of challenges:
• Chaotic expenses: Tracking monthly spending manually is tedious and error-prone.
• Shared bills confusion: Roommates often forget payments, leading to awkward conversations.
• Budget surprises: Without a clear overview, people frequently overspend or face shortages at month-end.
• Lack of transparency: It’s hard to know who owes what or if a bill has been paid.
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How “BrokeBuddy” Helps
This app simplifies and organizes everyday financial tasks for students and roommates:
1. Smart Dashboard
• Shows total budget, spent amount, remaining balance, and category-wise breakdown.
• Visual charts help you quickly understand where your money is going.
2. Expense Management
• Add and categorize daily or monthly expenses easily.
• Keep a record of all past expenses for better planning.
3. Shared Bills Made Simple
• Automatically splits bills among roommates.
• Tracks who has paid and who still owes.
• Sends gentle reminders to avoid awkward conversations.
4. Reminders & Notifications
• Highlights pending dues with clear color-coded indicators.
• Lets you mark payments as done for transparency and accountability.
5. Safe & Convenient
• Works entirely in the browser using local storage; no need to worry about losing data.
• Clean, modern UI inspired by Mint, with intuitive visuals.
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Benefits / Use Cases
• Students in hostels can budget better and avoid running out of money.
• Roommates can share utilities without conflicts.
• Makes tracking spending and payments fast, visual, and stress-free.
• Reduces the chances of missed payments or financial misunderstandings.
• Works on desktop and mobile, so you can manage finances anywhere.
Challenges we ran into
Challenges I Ran Into
1. Handling Large Files in Git
• While pushing the project to GitHub, the demo video files exceeded GitHub’s 50MB limit.
• Solution: I removed the large files from Git history and learned about Git Large File Storage (LFS) for future use.
2. Cross-Page Navigation & “Cannot GET /expenses.html” Error
• Initially, navigating to other pages like expenses.html gave a “Cannot GET” error.
• Cause: The files either weren’t in the correct folder or the links weren’t relative.
• Solution: I reorganized the folder structure, ensured all pages existed, and used correct relative paths for all sidebar links.
3. Persistent Data Across Pages
• Needed expenses, bills, and reminders to persist and update dynamically across pages.
• Solution: I implemented LocalStorage to save all data locally, allowing real-time updates and page refreshes without losing information.
4. Visual & UI Complexity
• Designing a Mint-like, modern dashboard with charts, cards, and responsive layout was tricky as a beginner.
• Solution: Iterated with Glassmorphism, gradients, hover effects, and used Chart.js for interactive, visually appealing charts.
5. Automated Bill Splitting Logic
• Splitting shared bills among roommates and tracking who owes what required careful calculation and dynamic updating.
• Solution: Built a robust JavaScript logic that automatically calculates per-person share, updates dues, and allows marking payments as done.
Tracks Applied (1)
Hostel Life Utility Manager - UI/UX Beginner Track (Freshers Only)
Technologies used