The Problem
Salaried Kenyans manage money across M-Pesa, bank accounts, SACCOs, and cash — none of which talk to each other. Generic budgeting apps don't model chama contributions, electricity tokens, or pay dates that don't align with the calendar month. The result: most people reach month-end with no clear picture of what happened.
What I Built
Designed PesaPlan around the actual Kenyan financial stack — multi-account consolidation, localized expense categories, and budget periods tied to real pay dates rather than calendar months. Built a free-to-start web app that gives users full financial visibility in under 2 minutes of setup.
Mapped the Kenyan financial reality: multiple account types, informal savings groups (chamas), mobile money as the default rail. Generic finance apps fail here because they model Western banking. PesaPlan needed categories and flows that reflect how money actually moves.
Designed the schema around flexible budget periods — a core decision that let users align budgets to their actual pay date rather than the 1st of the month. Getting this right early meant the budget, goals, and transaction layers all composed cleanly on top of it.
Income separation (employment vs. side hustle), debt tracking with direction (owed to you vs. owed by you), and investment logging were all first-class — not bolt-ons. Scoped tightly to avoid feature bloat while covering the use cases that matter for the target user.
Designed for speed: interactive budget calculator requires no signup, sensible defaults reduce setup friction, and the dashboard surfaces the numbers that matter at a glance. Straightforward language throughout — no finance jargon.
What Happened
Single dashboard consolidates M-Pesa, bank, SACCO, cash, and investment accounts
Budget periods align to actual pay dates — not forced into calendar months
Localized categories cover chama contributions, electricity tokens, and other Kenyan-specific expenses
Debt and lending tracker distinguishes money owed vs. money lent
Completely free — no credit card, no ads
In the Wild