This month, I’ve been helping my daughter Willow prepare to move to a new city for an internship. Watching her step into adulthood and embrace new responsibilities has been incredibly rewarding!
I’ve watched Willow tackle life’s milestones—getting her first job, transitioning from high school to college, opening her first bank account and credit card, and even voting in her first election!
But what makes me particularly proud? Willow’s financial literacy and sense of responsibility. And Lunch Money has played a key role in that journey.
A Tool for Family Financial Education 💡 📢
Did you know that your Lunch Money subscription includes the ability to create separate budgets for family members at no extra cost? This feature has been invaluable in helping Willow establish a solid foundation for her financial journey.
When Willow got her first credit card, I immediately set up a Lunch Money budget for her and helped her connect her bank accounts. It created the perfect chance for us to have meaningful conversations about saving, budgeting, and financial responsibility.
Here’s what Willow shared with me about her experience with Lunch Money:
🌱 Getting Started with Family Budgets
If you’d like to create a separate budget for a family member, check out our knowledge base for step-by-step instructions on how to create a new budgeting account and invite collaborators.
💬 Your Stories Matter
We’d love to hear from you! Has Lunch Money helped you or a family member develop better financial habits? Hit the reply button to share your story with us—your experiences inspire our community and help others on their financial journey.
Amazing Tools Built with Our API 🧰
We’re constantly amazed by the creative ways our community uses our Developer API to build tools that enhance the Lunch Money experience. Here are a few recent favorites:
🤖 LunchTUI: Command-Line Financial Management
LunchTUI is a brilliant command-line tool created by community member Ryan. It brings your Lunch Money data right into your terminal with a beautiful, intuitive interface. You can:
- View your accounts and budgets
- Categorize transactions
- Manage your finances straight from your terminal
LunchTUI is ideal for developers and command-line (CLI) enthusiasts who need quick access to their finances. It was built with the popular programming language, Go.
Ready to try it?
- For developers:
- For everyone else:
🤖 Lunch Flow: Global Transaction Import Powerhouse
Remember Lunch Flow? We featured this incredible companion tool in a previous newsletter, and it has become one of the most successful Lunch Money integrations out there. But creator Amr isn’t stopping there—he’s constantly innovating and adding new features.
Here’s his list of recent updates:
- Sync any Lunch Money transactions to Google Sheets (not just Lunch Flow imports)
- Support for more U.S. and Canadian banks (via MX & Fincity), which is great if Plaid doesn’t work for your bank
- Added Brazilian bank support (via Pluggy)
Also, the following features are in the works:
- Asia Pacific banks with Finverse—Contact Amr for early access.
- Auto-enrich transactions with custom categories—See a preview and share your thoughts!
As a hosted service, Lunch Flow charges a subscription fee; however, this may be worthwhile, especially for users with banks that don’t integrate with Plaid.
🤖 BBudget: Mobile-First Financial Management
Meet BBudget is a progressive web app built by Alex Shakhov for users in regions where traditional bank aggregators like Plaid don’t work reliably.
Here’s why BBudget stands out:
- Mobile-first design for easy, on-the-go transaction entry
- Works on any device
- Custom interface offers a fresh different perspective on your data
Here are some things you can do with it:
- You can create a new regular, transfer, or split transaction from a single screen
- You can also view activity for one bank on a single screen
This is why we love our Developer API—it enables developers like Alex to create solutions that work perfectly for their specific needs. One size truly never fits all, and Alex’s approach shows how our platform can adapt to different workflows and regional challenges. If you’re looking for a mobile-optimized way to manage your Lunch Money transactions, BBudget might be the perfect fit. It’s a great example of how our community solves real problems with creative solutions.
Note: Alex charges $1 per month to help cover his costs, but he also offers a 60-day trial. We believe that any hosted service requesting your Lunch Money API Key should be open source, and we’re happy to share that you can view (and contribute) to BBudget on Github.
Results from our May survey! 🗳️
Last month, we asked you for your preferred budgeting method. Here are the results! Any surprises?
- 🪙 Zero-Based Budgeting: 31%
- 🪙 Reverse Budgeting (Pay Yourself First): 11.3%
- 🪙 Envelope Method (Cash Stuffing): 11.3%
- 🪙 50/30/20 Budget Method: 8%
- 🪙 75/15/10 Method (variation of the 50/30/20): 6.5%
- 🪙 No preferred method (track spending, but no specific budget): 32%
Calling all Financial Coaches!
Are you a financial coach who loves using Lunch Money? We’re exploring a certification program that can help you to find more clients to guide you to financial success using Lunch Money. For more details, please visit the page below and join the waitlist to be the first in line when we launch!
Connect with us on social media!
Helping someone take their first steps toward financial independence? It’s not always easy, but it is so worth it!
If you’re not sure where to start, check out the latest YouTube video by Lunch Money financial coach Jacob Wade—a beginner’s guide for anyone starting to take control of their personal finances!💡
We’d love to connect with you on social media. Find us on the following platforms:
Do you have a story or idea? 💬
We’d love to feature more community stories in our newsletter!
👉 Do you have an interesting story about using Lunch Money that you’d like to share? Have you built a cool app, plugin, or tool you’d like to share with the Lunch Money community? Are there topics you’d like to see us explore in future issues of the Community Newsletter?
Please reach out to JP by email at jp@lunchmoney.app!
