In progress
RootJar: personal finance for iOS
RootJar is the classic budget jar, automatic with Apple Pay and without handing your bank data to anyone. An iOS and iPadOS app to track spending, budgets and savings jars.
The problem
Almost every finance app makes you choose between convenience and privacy. The automatic ones connect to your bank, usually through an intermediary that keeps your credentials or transactions on its servers, and many make money from analysing that data. The private ones make you log everything by hand, and most users give up within a few weeks. RootJar aims for both at once.
What I did and how it works
- Private by design: no servers of our own, no accounts to create and no bank access. Data lives on your device and in your private iCloud (CloudKit), with sensitive fields encrypted. No ads and no tracking: we can’t see your money.
- Automatic without touching your bank: when you pay with Apple Pay, a Shortcuts automation logs the payment in the app. If a payment is incomplete or unclear, it stays pending and doesn’t count until you approve it.
- A budget you understand at a glance: the month’s jar empties as you spend. Savings jars are smaller jars for a goal, can count towards the budget or not, and you see your total net worth and the money not yet assigned.
- Built like an Apple app: native components, iPhone and iPad, widgets with privacy mode, Siri, Shortcuts, Face ID / Touch ID lock, dark mode and CSV export.
Tech stack
Usage details
- The name joins two ideas: “jar” comes from the age-old method of splitting money into jars or envelopes; “root” is the foundation of healthy finances: steady habits and savings that grow slowly but firmly.
- Free and ad-free. Coming soon to the App Store.