FunnyMoney
Social Budgeting for Gen Z Students
A social-first financial wellness platform that reframes budgeting as a gamified, emotionally aware, community-driven experience — helping Gen Z students manage spending without sacrificing their social lives. Winner of the 2026 SIGCHI Design Jam.
Won for combining behavioral research, financial technology, and gamified UX into a technically feasible product ecosystem.
Mixed-methods study spanning majors, academic years, and residency statuses to capture a broad behavioral picture.
Financial behavior, social behavior, gamification, and emotional motivation — synthesized into one product concept.
Gen Z students understand that financial planning matters, but consistently disengage from budgeting tools that feel corporate, intimidating, and restrictive. Traditional apps overwhelm users with charts and treat spending as a problem — not a lifestyle.
Reframe budgeting as a socially connected lifestyle system — emotionally intelligent, passively tracked, and gamified — so financial awareness becomes motivating rather than anxiety-inducing.
Semi-structured interviews explored how students currently manage money, why budgeting tools fail to retain engagement, and what motivates long-term app usage.
- How do you currently track or manage your finances?
- What is the biggest deterrent for young people learning about finance?
- How do you budget for hobbies or leisure activities?
- What is your most-used app or game right now?
- What feature keeps you coming back?
- What makes educational apps feel overwhelming?
- Most students relied on "mental budgeting" rather than structured tracking systems.
- The majority checked their bank balance immediately before making a purchase.
- Flexible budgeting was strongly preferred over rigid financial structures.
- Gamified progress and social accountability outperformed traditional finance education as motivators.
- Cost anxiety significantly impacted social participation and event attendance.
- Users tracked spending mentally instead of formally.
- Budgeting felt associated with "adulting pressure."
- Spending patterns shifted heavily based on hobbies and lifestyle.
- Leisure activities were treated as emotional rewards.
- Cost barriers prevented participation in social events.
- Digital platforms served as the primary social connector.
"Students did not want a strict budgeting tool, another spreadsheet, or a finance lecture. They wanted financial awareness without guilt."
— Research Synthesis, FunnyMoney
The platform automatically tracks spending and transforms transactions into personalized insights — without punishing users for spending money.
Secure bank API integration via Plaid — no manual logging. The app pulls and enriches transaction data automatically in the background.
Gemini API applies behavioral labeling and tone generation — conversational, emotionally aware feedback instead of financial lectures.
Small wins and achievable goals — visible community progress and social accountability tied to friends and shared financial targets.
Users override AI category labels — corrections are stored in a personal database and improve future categorization automatically over time.
Replaced aggressive warnings and guilt-based messaging with conversational AI feedback.
Automatic transaction ingestion removed the friction of manual logging.
Budgeting became significantly more motivating when tied to friends and shared goals.
Avoided dense dashboards and spreadsheet interfaces entirely.
The platform connects to a user's bank account using financial aggregation APIs, providing secure read-only access with tokenized authentication. The app never stores banking credentials.
Plaid API pulls raw transaction data. Plaid Enrich normalizes merchant names and categories.
Gemini API applies behavioral labeling and tone generation. Users can override labels to correct categorization.
The system stores user corrections in a personal database to improve future categorization automatically.
Raw: "AMZN MKTP US $22.40" → Enriched: Shopping → AI label: "Impulse Buy" → User corrects to "Business Expense" → System remembers.
This project reinforced that financial tools need to support people emotionally — not just mathematically. The research process deepened my skills in synthesis, affinity diagramming, behavioral design, and translating human-centered insights into technically feasible product concepts.