It can be a good thing when it comes
to money
Guilt makes it very easy to keep track of
everything you spend with a smartphone, and quickly note down new entries as
you make them. This offers the advantage of not only saving you time, but
ensuring that you do not miss crucial entries which can affect your balance at
the end of the month. There are many expense managers available for Android
that can do all that we have described, but the majority miss one very
important aspect of money management, which is the emotions that spending money
brings. That may sound odd, but it is very easy to make a purchase and keep a
note of it, and thus fool yourself into believing that you are managing your
money. The problem here is that you are merely making a list which will have no
positive effect on your finances at all unless you spend lots of time looking
at reports and working out exactly where your money has gone. Many apps allow
for this kind of analysis and are capable of producing detailed graphs and
reports to study at your leisure, but the process is time consuming and
ultimately quite a boring one to undertake.
The
reports are color-coded to highlight unnecessary spending immediately
Guilt is an expense manager that includes
many of the features you would normally expect to see in such an app, but with
a crucial difference. As the name suggests, it is designed to play on your
emotions to help you figure out where your money is going and, more crucially,
why you are spending on particular items. Every person has an emotional
response when spending money and there are triggers that can cause them. It is
not always the amount of money spent, but the object in question and the reason
you are spending it. $525 on an electricity bill is a lot of money, but is also
necessary. $15 in the coffee shop is a luxury that you probably don’t need, and
thus you may feel more guilty in that instance. As you add new entries to
Guilt, you have to also choose how guilty you felt at the time. There are five
guilt values, color-coded ranging from green all the way to red to indicate
your feelings at the time of purchase. Your choices not only show up in the
list of individual items, but are also categorized in the reports section to
show exactly how much you spent and the appropriate levels of guilt. This may
sound like a novelty, but guilt when spending comes from buying things you do
not need, and the reports clearly show which expenditure in particular made you
feel guilty, and which items were unnecessary. Chances are that you will be
able to quickly assess how to tweak your spending and make your list of
transactions and the associated reports more green than red, which will benefit
you financially in the long run.
You
can share your expense reports via various services
“The reports clearly show how much
you have spent”
All of the above is housed in a clean
interface that makes the relatively boring process of managing expenses less
dull, and every single navigation feature feels natural and efficient to use.
The only potential criticism we could level at Guilt is that it could include
more features in the reporting and exporting areas for those that need them,
but that would be splitting hairs because it excels in every other area. The
emotional twist is fantastic and ultimately everything about the app is above
average. Whether you need more advanced functionality or not, Guilt still
offers a pleasing experience that is likely to help you manage your money more
effectively than a traditional expense manager. It’s time to experience some
guilt.
Text
is used to indicate your spending habits alongside graphs and numbers
An original expense manager with a
clever emotional twist that really does work
Verdict: 5 stars
Platform: Android; iOS 4.0
Price: $1.99
Pros/Cons
·
Exceptionally clean display and easy to
understand navigation
·
The guilt trick really works in making you think
about your expenditure
·
Would benefit from more advanced features for
some users
·
More exporting formats would be useful to share
among devices
How to … Use the reporting features
1.
Tap the icon
From the main screen, tap the reporting
icon at the top, which is represented by three descending lines. You will be
presented with a weekly view of your personal expenses.
2.
The past month
Tapping Month at the top will accumulate
your expenditure for the current month to give a better idea of how much money
you are wasting. Study the results carefully.
3.
The whole year
The best indicator of where your money is
going will come from the yearly report, which builds into a more accurate
record as time passes and the app is used more.
The
best indicator of where your money is going will come from the yearly report
4.
The overview
Tap the people icon at the top to view a
more detailed report on your expenditure. It even shows in plain English what
the level of guilt you most frequently attain is.
5.
The summary
Tap the sharing icon at the top, and then
choose your method. A simple sentence will be sent that will act as a reminder
of how you should feel about your manic spending.
