Privacy
A budgeting app with no bank connection, and why that changes everything
The comfort of automatic syncing has a price you pay without seeing it: you never look at your spending again.
What a connected app actually does
It does not talk to your bank directly. It goes through an aggregator — a third-party company that holds your credentials or an access token, pulls your transactions, and resells them to the service you use.
Your statements therefore pass through at least two companies besides your bank. Each keeps them, often for several years, sometimes outside Europe.
The real problem isn't security
Serious aggregators are properly secured. The problem lies elsewhere, and it is more awkward: an app that sorts your spending for you saves you from looking at it.
You open the app once a month, you note the damage, you close it. The chart is pretty and it changed nothing. It is the same mechanism as a connected scale that weighs you automatically: it measures, it doesn't make you lose weight.
Manual entry isn't a technical limitation. It is the active ingredient: the moment you type the amount in is the only moment you actually look at it. Twenty seconds a day, and the expense exists in your head instead of in a table.
Three concrete consequences
No account to create
No email address, no password, nothing to be stolen. There is no server to search for your data, because there isn't one.
Every bank works
Including the small local one aggregators don't support, and cash, which nobody syncs.
Nothing breaks
A bank connection drops regularly: password changed, stronger authentication, bank cutting access. Manual entry never drops.
What it costs
Twenty seconds a day. That is the one real drawback, and it should be said: if you don't record, no app will do it for you.
And the price?
A detail rarely mentioned: an aggregator charges per connected account, per month. An app that syncs your bank therefore carries a recurring cost per user — which explains why nearly all of them are subscriptions, and why some resell data to stay afloat.
An app with no connection doesn't have that cost. That is also why Monni can stay simple and cheap.
Who it's a bad choice for
Let's be honest: if all you want is to observe your past spending without changing anything, a connected app does the job with less effort. Manual entry makes sense when the goal is to change something — see the kakeibo, which rests entirely on that principle.
Common questions
Is a budgeting app without a bank connection less convenient?
Yes, by about twenty seconds a day. In exchange, no data leaves the phone, no connection drops, and cash is included.
Is my data really on my phone?
With Monni, yes: there is no account, no server and no syncing. Backup is a file you export yourself.
Why are connected apps nearly all subscriptions?
Because the aggregator that pulls the bank transactions charges per connected account, per month. That recurring cost has to be covered by recurring revenue.
Does manual entry last over time?
If the app asks for twenty seconds, yes. If it asks you to fill in six fields per expense, no. It is the friction that makes people quit, not the principle.
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Method
Kakeibo: the Japanese method for keeping a budget
A notebook, four questions, and the habit of looking your money in the eye. Invented in 1904, and still valid.
Nothing leaves your phone
No bank connected, no account to create, no data sent anywhere. Free to start.
Download MonniFree to start · No account · No bank connection