Fortune City: Expense Tracker

First of all, the icon for this app really sets up what the app is going to be about. It’s fun-looking, like a game, but it also has a serious name and a pencil in the design to indicate that the app does involve tracking and budgeting. The App Store description does a good job, and the app itself is so user friendly and cute. I would say this app is for anyone needing motivation or just starting out trying to budget. It makes it fun to pay attention to how money is spent, and the collection aspect is very addicting. The app is free and very professionally done. The main focus of the app is motivating people to engage in mindful spending by having users track their expenses. By being aware of what you are spending, you can build a better budget plan. The design is absolutely adorable, and it uses a lot of game mechanics to create a motivating experience. The content, however, can be a little complicated to understand. I found that it throws you right into the game. Some scaffolded learning may benefit users. That being said, it was easy to navigate and use, the cost was perfect, and many people love this app, myself included.

I find this app to be both fun and useful. As I make purchases throughout my day I will log them into the game and have been able to categorize each one to my specifications. There are major categories and subcategories in order to track your purchases. It does incur you to spend more IRL just to gain new building types, but it’s not necessary, because those will come with time. The free version itself offers a good range of capabilities, but for a few bucks a month you can also use more extensive graphing features, which is quite helpful for long-term budgeting. The game interface on top of that is quite easy to maneuver and play around with. Even when not doing anything with your city for a day, you workers will build additional parks to liven things up. Overall, I absolutely enjoy this app, and would also recommend some of the partner apps as well, Walkr and Plant Nanny. Those encourage positive and healthy daily routines, like exercise and drinking more water. Thank you dev. team! Well done!

I’ve never written a review for an app much less spend money on one. I was lucky to stumble across this because now I track my money every single day. Before this app, I always guessed how much I spent or I just didn’t care. This app has proven to me how important it is to track your money...every single penny! I even upgraded and subscribed to the extra $4 a month because this app is that important to me. I just started month 2. Use month 1 as a good gauge of where your money is going. Just track it every day. Then month 2 you can upgrade the app and really drill in on your budget. I spent over $500 on food last month! Rich boy life! I’m eating enough for a family lol. I never would’ve known this if it wasn’t for this app. I always kind of guessed or I literally just didn’t care. That’s a lot of money on junk food. A lot. It’s not gonna happen any more no sir! It feels good knowing where your money is going and how you can cut back and save more! Thank you guys! Great app!

So all in all, have to say, I like this app. I mean I keep track of my expenses at home by myself (outside of this) in an excel sheet, but I do not always look at it every day, or I don’t open up each card and organize things, and I do not always want to type up what category things are in and pull numbers to make a graph... Essentially what this game does is make all of that instant and simple. The second I buy something I log it in the game and it does both a daily bar chart as well as a pie. This is helpful. Now you get more tools for paying... but for free, this is a helpful simple way of keeping track of things. On top of that, it is just fun to mess with your city some. Now the only reason I dropped it one star is because, well there are not enough categories in the free mode... example, there is “food” and “drinks” but no eating out etc. I really want to differentiate some costs so I can budget better, but I can’t. In summation, pretty solid app though it could be improved.

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tried this out for a few months, hoping it would help me budget. i did find it fun and useful for that, although the game has bizarre mechanisms that punish you for not spending money at least 5 times a day. they must really not know their audience... people installing budgeting apps are obviously seeking programs that teach them to save. this game does the opposite. i managed to stick with the game despite that fault. but now i have really hit a wall i did not see coming. once you play the game long enough to level up your buildings a few times, it stops being free to play. i CANNOT upgrade the buildings in my city unless i pay irl money for “diamonds” (the games pay-to-play currency). it’s pretty sneaky not to even give me the option to level up in other ways. the game doesn’t have functions that give you diamonds for free either, unlike some other games with p2p options. i cannot move any further without giving them money. i’ll be uninstalling this now, since the gamemakers so clearly misunderstood that anyone who would play this game is trying not to spend money.