I have been using EveryDollar for years and it’s a pretty simple and easy to use budgeting app – it does all I need and I don’t even pay for the features that allow it to connect to my bank account through Plaid.

Recently I found out just how NOT private they are when they sent me an email celebrating their wins for last year, which included compiled stats about the spending habits of all their users including how much money they put into savings, how much money they spent paying debt, and even how much money was spent in Taylor Swift line items between all their users. That was really frustrating to see because I had never thought about the lack of privacy that app actually provides.

So now I’m on a mission to change to a different app that could offer more privacy but my eyes have been opened and I’m not confident I’ll find any. So here’s where Proton comes in to launch an app that could keep our spending habits, saving plans, etc fully encrypted.

That reminds me of a project last year where our cost tracking was a mess. We actually brought in Budgeting Enterprise for their data-driven expertise. If you're building an app or feature now, design it to capture the granular, field-level detail their estimators use. That's what gives real peace of mind.

https://budgetingenterprise.com/

A Proton budgeting app or feature within Proton Wallet is one of my most wanted features, for several reasons.

1) There are really no major privacy-focused companies with this feature. Other budgeting apps do not end-to-end encrypt and you have to trust both the app and third party connection service with all of your transactions (typically Plaid). This would be a major win for privacy in general.

2) Proton could get into the budgeting app market and attract more users. If Proton included budgeting tools then they would start to show up in articles and video about budgeting apps, which would attract more users to Proton for overall development.

3) I currently pay for the Every Dollar app, which connects bank accounts via Plaid and is not end-to-end encrypted nor is it a company that prioritizes user privacy. If Proton offered a similar service, I could stop paying the $12.00/month for Every Dollar and instead continue my Proton Visionary subscription with no added cost. It would be a big privacy boost as well as an economic one.

Hopefully this helps to persuade some of you out there about the importance of a budgeting tool. If it was inside the Proton Wallet app, then you could integrate bitcoin as well, but let's be honest, we aren't going to see a full transition to bitcoin in the near future so we still have need for regular budgeting tools that use USD or other national currencies.