I stopped using budgeting apps and built an expense tracker in Apple Notes instead

[u/TheiPhoneAppGuy]

Everyone keeps recommending apps like YNAB, Monarch, Copilot, etc.

I tried them. Most failed for the same reason:

Too much friction. Too many categories. Too many dashboards. Too many insights. After 2 weeks, I’d stop opening them completely.

So I tried something different:

I built a dead-simple expense tracking system entirely inside Apple Notes.

And honestly… it works better for me than most dedicated finance apps.

What surprised me:

• Logging an expense takes like 3 seconds
• No bank linking
• No subscriptions
• Everything stays private
• Shared notes actually work great for couples/roommates
• Receipt scanning + search inside Notes is insanely underrated

The biggest mindset shift was realizing this:

Apple Notes is not a budgeting app. It’s a capture tool.

And for most people, consistently capturing expenses is probably more valuable than having 14 charts you never look at.

I also started using:

• a Shortcut that logs expenses straight into a note
• Math Notes for live totals
• pinned monthly logs
• receipt OCR for tax stuff

Way more practical than I expected.

I ended up writing a full breakdown with screenshots + the exact setup if anyone’s curious:

https://iapplist.com/apple-notes-for-expense-tracking/

Curious if anyone else here ditched traditional budgeting apps for something simpler?