# Chillar's — full documentation > Chillar's is a free expense tracker and money manager for the web. It tracks accounts, transactions, budgets, loans and planned payments across multiple currencies, installs as a progressive web app that keeps working through a dropped connection, and exports everything. There is no paid tier and no bank connection; the service is supported by advertising. Canonical site: https://chillars.com ## Features ### A free expense tracker that does the arithmetic exactly URL: https://chillars.com/features/expense-tracker Chillar's is a free expense tracker for the web. You log an expense with an amount, a category and an account; it stores the amount as an exact decimal, groups your history by day, and shows income, expenses and the balance for any period you choose. #### Logging an expense takes one line The quick-add box parses a whole transaction from plain text, so the common case never opens a form. Type the amount, a title, an account and a category and press enter. - `12.50 coffee @cash #food`: an expense of 12.50 from Cash, categorised Food - `+2400 salary @bank`: income, because of the leading plus - `(45+18)/2 dinner @card`: the amount field is a calculator, so splitting a bill needs no mental arithmetic #### Every amount is an exact decimal Money is stored as NUMERIC(19,4) in Postgres and handled with big.js in the browser. There is no floating-point arithmetic anywhere in the money path, which is why a long list of small transactions still adds up to the number you would get on paper. #### The history is grouped the way you think about it Transactions are grouped by day with income and expense totals per day, and the whole ledger is virtualized, so ten thousand rows scroll at the speed of ten. Filters for type, account, category, amount range, keywords and tags all live in the URL, so a view you built is a link you can send. #### A dropped connection does not stop you Chillar's needs the internet to sign in and to sync, but not to keep working once it is open. It installs as a progressive web app, pages you have visited render from cache when the network is gone, and a transaction you log with no signal waits in the browser until you reconnect. Each one carries a client-generated id, so a retry can never double it. **Is Chillar's free?** Yes. Chillar's is free to use. There is no paid tier and no feature held back behind an upgrade prompt; advertising is what pays for the service. **Can I use the expense tracker offline?** Yes. Chillar's installs as a progressive web app: previously visited pages render from cache with no connection, and transactions you add offline are queued locally and synced when you are back online. **Can I import my existing expenses?** Yes. Chillar's imports CSV files with a guided mapping step for nine common apps, including Money Manager, Wallet by BudgetBakers, Spendee, Monefy and Bluecoins, and it imports Ivy Wallet backup files directly. ### A budget planner that tells you what is left URL: https://chillars.com/features/budget-planner Chillar's budgets cover a week, a month or a year and can be scoped to any set of categories and accounts. Each budget shows the amount spent inside its own period, what remains, and an over-budget state, all computed from your own transactions. #### Budget the categories that vary A budget can cover one category, several, or everything. Scope it to a set of accounts as well when you want to budget only what leaves your current account and ignore the card you settle in full each month. #### Three periods, each with real bounds Weekly budgets run Monday to Sunday, monthly budgets follow your own start-day-of-month, and yearly budgets run the calendar year. Spend is summed inside the budget's own bounds, so a monthly budget on a salary cycle starting the 15th measures the 15th to the 14th. #### 50/30/20 without a spreadsheet Three budgets (needs, wants and savings) reproduce the 50/30/20 rule, and the guide covers picking the category split. Chillar's computes budgets from your real transactions, so the numbers move as the month goes on. **Does a budget include planned payments that have not happened yet?** No. Budget spend counts settled transactions only. A planned payment counts the moment you settle it, which is when the money leaves the account. **Can I budget in a currency other than my base currency?** Budget amounts are in your base currency. Transactions in other currencies are converted with your exchange rates, including any per-pair overrides you have set, before they are counted. ### A money manager for accounts, transfers and net worth URL: https://chillars.com/features/money-manager Chillar's tracks accounts, transfers between them, budgets, loans and planned payments in one place. Net worth is the sum of every account balance converted to your base currency, with excluded accounts left out and a savings buffer you can set and measure against. #### Accounts you choose to count Each account has its own currency, colour and icon, and a flag for whether it counts towards net worth. A joint account you contribute to but do not own can be tracked without distorting your own total. #### Transfers are a single transaction Moving money between your own accounts writes one transfer row, so it never appears as income on one side and an expense on the other unless you ask for that view. Cross-currency transfers store both amounts, because the rate your bank used is the rate that happened. #### A buffer you set yourself Set the amount you want to keep untouched and the balance screen shows the difference between your net worth and that buffer. You can answer 'can I afford this' without opening a spreadsheet. **Is my financial data private?** Your rows are isolated at the database level with row-level security, so a query can only ever return your own data. Chillar's sells nothing to third parties and never uses your transactions to target the ads it shows. It reads nothing from your bank, because you never link a bank to it. **Can I export everything?** Yes. A full JSON export contains every row Chillar's holds for you, and filtered views export to CSV, XLSX or PDF. The JSON export imports back into Chillar's, so you can restore from it. ### Multi-currency accounts with rates you control URL: https://chillars.com/features/multi-currency Every account in Chillar's has its own currency. Net worth converts each balance to your base currency using published rates, refreshed daily, and you can override any individual rate. An account whose rate is missing contributes zero rather than a wrong number. #### Rates you can correct Published mid-market rates are a starting point. Set an override for any currency pair, such as the rate your remittance service gave you, and every conversion uses it from then on. #### A missing rate is never a wrong number If a rate is unavailable, the account contributes zero to net worth and labels itself, instead of falling back to 1:1. You can see which account is missing a rate and set one. #### Formatting follows your locale Set your locale to en-IN and amounts group in lakh and crore with a rupee symbol; set it to en-US and the same amounts group in thousands with a dollar sign. Chillar's formats at the last step and never touches the stored value. **Where do the exchange rates come from?** Rates are refreshed daily from a public exchange-rate feed, stored against a single base currency, and cross-rates are derived from it. You can override any rate yourself, and your override always wins. **Does changing my base currency convert my history?** No. Changing your base currency changes what net worth and totals are reported in. The amount stored on each transaction is the amount in that account's own currency and is never rewritten. ### Track money you lent and money you owe URL: https://chillars.com/features/loans A loan in Chillar's records who and how much, then accumulates records: repayments, additional borrowing, and interest. Each record can move real money in a linked account. The loan's remaining balance is total borrowed minus principal repaid, with interest kept separate. #### Interest never touches the principal An interest payment is a real transaction that leaves your account, but it does not reduce what you still owe. Chillar's keeps the two apart, so the remaining balance means what it says. #### Records that move money Attach an account to a loan record and Chillar's creates the matching transaction with the right direction. Lending money out is an expense, being repaid is income, and borrowing is the mirror of both. #### The informal loans you already have Most personal lending is money to a sibling, money from a friend, or a deposit someone owes back. These are the loans you forget about, and a running balance keeps them in front of you. **Does a loan repayment count as an expense in my budget?** Yes, if the record is linked to an account. The repayment is a real transaction in that account, so it appears in your history and counts towards any budget whose scope includes it. ### Planned payments: know what is due before it leaves URL: https://chillars.com/features/planned-payments A planned payment is a transaction with a due date instead of a date. Recurring rules generate future instances (weekly, fortnightly, monthly or yearly), and the dashboard lists what is overdue and what is coming inside the current period. #### Month-end dates that behave A monthly rule anchored on the 31st falls to the 28th in February and returns to the 31st in March, because each occurrence is counted from the anchor rather than from the previous one. Dates never drift earlier over a year. #### Settle, or skip Settling a planned payment gives it a real date and turns it into a normal transaction in your history. Skipping one removes that occurrence without touching the rule, so a month you paid in cash does not haunt the list forever. #### Or let it settle itself Turn on auto-settle for the payments you never think about, such as a subscription on a card or a standing instruction. Past occurrences arrive already settled, and future ones stay planned. **Will Chillar's remind me before a payment is due?** Chillar's can send a daily reminder notification at a time you choose, in your own timezone, and it skips the reminder on days you have already recorded a transaction. **Can a planned payment be a transfer between my accounts?** Not yet. Planned payments cover income and expenses today; a recurring transfer between two of your own accounts has to be logged when it happens. ## Frequently asked questions **Is Chillar's free?** Yes. Chillar's is free to use. There is no paid tier, no trial that expires, and no feature withheld behind an upgrade prompt. **How does Chillar's make money?** Advertising. Ads pay for the servers, which is what keeps every feature available on a single free tier. Chillar's does not sell your financial data and does not share it with data brokers. **Will Chillar's start charging later?** There are no plans to. Chillar's is funded by advertising rather than subscriptions, and a full JSON export is always one click away if that ever changes. **Is my financial data private?** Yes. Every row is isolated at the database level with row-level security, so a query can only ever return your own data. Chillar's sells nothing to third parties, never uses your transactions to target the ads it shows, and never sees your banking credentials because it has no bank connection. **Does Chillar's connect to my bank?** No. Chillar's has no bank or card integration. You add transactions yourself, import a CSV, or import a backup file. Nothing reads your bank account, so no banking credential is ever stored. **Can I export my data?** Yes. A full JSON export contains every row Chillar's holds for you and can be imported back, so it works as a real backup. Any filtered view also exports to CSV, XLSX or PDF. **Can I delete my account?** Yes. Account deletion is requested from the settings page and takes effect after a seven-day grace period, during which you can cancel it. After the grace period every row belonging to the account is permanently removed. **Does Chillar's work offline?** Partly. Chillar's is a web app, so it needs a connection to sign in and to sync, but not to keep working once it is open. It installs as a progressive web app: pages you have already visited render from cache with no connection, and transactions added offline are queued in the browser and sent when you reconnect. **Does Chillar's support multiple currencies?** Yes. Each account has its own currency and net worth converts every balance to the base currency you choose. Exchange rates refresh daily and any individual rate can be overridden. **Does Chillar's format amounts in lakh and crore?** Yes. Setting your locale to en-IN groups amounts in lakh and crore with the rupee symbol, as in ₹12,34,567.89, while en-US groups the same amounts in thousands. Formatting follows the locale and never changes the stored value. **Can I import from Mint, Walnut or another expense tracker?** Yes, via CSV. Chillar's has guided import flows for nine common apps including Money Manager, Wallet by BudgetBakers, Spendee, Monefy, Bluecoins and Financisto, and imports Ivy Wallet backups directly. **Is there a mobile app?** Chillar's is a progressive web app, so it installs to a phone home screen from the browser and runs full-screen with offline support and shortcuts, without going through an app store. ## Glossary ### Net worth URL: https://chillars.com/glossary/net-worth Net worth is everything you own minus everything you owe. In a personal finance app it is the sum of every account balance, converted to one currency, with debts counted as negative balances. Net worth answers 'how am I doing', because it moves only when your position changes. Income and spending are flows over a period; net worth is a stock at a moment. It beats a bank balance because it counts every account together: current accounts, savings, cash, and the card balance you have not paid yet. Chillar's converts accounts held in other currencies to your base currency before adding them. Example: A current account of 42,000, savings of 180,000 and a card balance of −15,500 gives a net worth of 206,500. ### Cash flow URL: https://chillars.com/glossary/cash-flow Cash flow is the money that came in minus the money that went out over a period. Positive cash flow means you finished the period with more than you started; negative means you drew down savings. You measure cash flow over a window (a week, a month, a salary cycle) as the difference between income and expenses inside it. Transfers between your own accounts are not cash flow, because no money entered or left your position. A month with positive cash flow and falling net worth points to an unrecorded liability, such as a card balance building up. Example: Income of 5,200 and expenses of 4,650 in July is a cash flow of +550 for the month. ### Savings rate URL: https://chillars.com/glossary/savings-rate Savings rate is the share of your income you did not spend, expressed as a percentage. It is calculated as income minus expenses, divided by income, over the same period. Savings rate is the most portable personal-finance metric there is: it does not depend on your currency, your country or how much you earn, so you can compare it across time and between people. Because it is a ratio, a raise only improves it if your spending stays flat. That is why it beats tracking savings in absolute terms. Example: Income 5,200, expenses 4,160: the savings rate is (5,200 − 4,160) ÷ 5,200 = 20%. ### Emergency fund URL: https://chillars.com/glossary/emergency-fund An emergency fund is money set aside to cover essential expenses if income stops. You hold it in an account you can draw on the same day, sized in months of expenses, commonly three to six. Size it on months of *essential* expenses (rent, food, utilities, insurance, minimum debt payments) rather than months of total spending, because discretionary spending is the first thing to fall in an emergency. Keep it liquid rather than invested, and keep it out of any savings goal you might spend it against. Example: Essential expenses of 2,800 a month means a three-month emergency fund of 8,400. ### Sinking fund URL: https://chillars.com/glossary/sinking-fund A sinking fund is money saved gradually for a known future expense, such as an annual insurance premium or a replacement laptop, so the payment does not arrive as a shock. A sinking fund turns an irregular expense into a regular one. You divide the expected cost by the months until it is due and set that amount aside each month. It differs from an emergency fund in that the expense is expected. Mixing the two is the usual reason an emergency fund never seems to grow. Example: A 12,000 annual insurance premium due in ten months is a sinking fund of 1,200 a month. ### Zero-based budgeting URL: https://chillars.com/glossary/zero-based-budgeting Zero-based budgeting assigns every unit of income a job: spending, saving or debt repayment, until nothing is unassigned. The budget balances at zero, which describes a plan rather than an empty account. Each period you start from your expected income and allocate it, instead of adjusting last period's numbers. Assign whatever is left to savings or a sinking fund, so it does not drift into discretionary spending. It asks more of you than category limits, and it shows you more about where money was going by default. Example: Income 5,200 allocated as rent 1,500, food 600, transport 250, savings 1,040, debt 700, everything else 1,110. Total 5,200, remainder 0. ### 50/30/20 rule URL: https://chillars.com/glossary/50-30-20-rule The 50/30/20 rule splits after-tax income into 50% needs, 30% wants and 20% savings or debt repayment. It is a starting allocation, not a law, and is meant to be adjusted to your cost of living. The rule is coarse enough to follow. You can check three categories in seconds, where a thirty-line budget takes an evening. It breaks down where housing is expensive relative to income, since a 50% needs share is out of reach in many cities. Keep the 20% savings target there and let needs and wants absorb the difference. Example: On after-tax income of 5,200: needs 2,600, wants 1,560, savings and debt 1,040. ### Discretionary spending URL: https://chillars.com/glossary/discretionary-spending Discretionary spending is money spent on things you chose rather than things you were committed to. It is the part of a budget that can change next month without renegotiating anything. The distinction is about commitment: a gym membership on a twelve-month contract is not discretionary until the contract ends, and an expensive but cancellable subscription is. It is the part of a budget you can change this month, which is why separating it from fixed expenses is the first useful cut in any category list. ### Fixed expense URL: https://chillars.com/glossary/fixed-expense A fixed expense is a recurring cost of roughly the same amount each period: rent, a loan instalment, insurance, a subscription. It is predictable, which makes it easy to plan and easy to forget. Fixed expenses are the natural candidates for planned payments. Record one as a recurring rule and it appears in the upcoming list before the money leaves. Reviewing them once or twice a year finds more savings than optimising daily spending does, because a single cancelled subscription compounds over every remaining month. ### Base currency URL: https://chillars.com/glossary/base-currency Your base currency is the single currency all totals are reported in. Accounts can be held in any currency; each balance is converted to the base currency before net worth, budgets and reports are calculated. Choosing a base currency is a reporting decision. The amount recorded on a transaction stays in that account's own currency, exactly as it happened, and Chillar's converts at the moment it computes a total. Changing your base currency later is safe: it changes the unit your answers arrive in, and leaves the facts underneath alone. Example: With a base currency of INR, a USD account holding 1,000 at a rate of 88 contributes 88,000 to net worth. ## Guides and articles ### How to track expenses (and still be doing it in three months) URL: https://chillars.com/guides/how-to-track-expenses Track expenses by recording every payment the moment it happens, sorting it into fewer than fifteen categories, reconciling against your account balance once a week, and reviewing category totals once a month. Capture speed matters more than category precision. 1. **Pick one capture moment** — Decide when you record a payment, either at the till or in a single sweep each evening, and use the same moment every time. Habits attach to a trigger, not to an intention. 2. **Start with fewer than fifteen categories** — Broad categories get used; precise ones get skipped. Split a category only after a month where you wanted the detail. 3. **Log the account as well as the amount** — Recording which account a payment came from is what makes reconciliation possible later, and it costs one extra tap now. 4. **Reconcile weekly against your real balance** — Once a week, compare your tracked balance with the bank's. A gap found after seven days is findable; a gap found after ninety is not. 5. **Review category totals monthly** — Look at the month's totals per category and compare them with the previous month. This review is the point of tracking. Skip it and you are only bookkeeping. **How long does it take to track expenses each day?** Under a minute a day once the habit is established. Logging a single expense takes a few seconds with a quick-add line, and the weekly reconciliation takes about five minutes. **Should I track cash expenses too?** Yes, and cash is the category most worth tracking, because it is the spending that leaves no statement behind. Keep a cash account and record withdrawals as transfers into it, not as expenses. ### How to make a monthly budget from your own numbers URL: https://chillars.com/guides/how-to-make-a-monthly-budget Make a monthly budget by averaging your last three months of spending per category, setting a limit just below that average for the two or three categories you want to change, and leaving the rest alone. Budgets built from templates fail because they describe someone else's life. 1. **Get three months of history first** — A budget without history is a guess. Import a CSV from your bank or track for three months before setting any limit. 2. **Separate fixed from variable** — You schedule fixed costs (rent, instalments, insurance, subscriptions) rather than budget them. Only variable spending needs a limit. 3. **Budget two or three categories** — Pick the categories where you intend to change behaviour. A limit on every category is a limit you will stop reading. 4. **Set the limit just below your average** — A limit 10–15% under your three-month average is achievable. A limit at half your average is a target you will breach in week two and then ignore. 5. **Review at month end and adjust once** — Compare actual against limit, change at most one number, and run it again. Budgets improve by iteration, not by design. **Should my budget month match the calendar month?** It should match your income cycle. If you are paid on the 25th, a budget period running the 25th to the 24th matches how the money arrives and how you spend it. **What if I go over budget?** Nothing happens except that you know. A budget is a measurement, and going over tells you something about your spending or your limit. Decide which of the two was wrong. ### The 50/30/20 rule: what it is and how to run it URL: https://chillars.com/guides/50-30-20-rule The 50/30/20 rule allocates after-tax income as 50% needs, 30% wants and 20% savings or debt repayment. Work out the three numbers from your take-home pay, sort each category into one of the three buckets, and track the buckets rather than individual categories. **Is the 50/30/20 rule calculated on gross or net income?** On net, after-tax income: the amount that reaches your account. Using gross income inflates all three numbers and puts the savings target out of reach. **What counts as a need rather than a want?** A need is something you would still have to pay for if your income halved: housing, utilities, groceries, transport to work, insurance, minimum debt payments. Everything else, including the more expensive version of a need, is a want. **Does the 50/30/20 rule work on a low income?** The proportions often do not, because housing takes more than half. The rule still helps as a diagnostic: if needs exceed 50%, the useful conclusion is that the constraint is structural, not that you are overspending. ### Zero-based budgeting, step by step URL: https://chillars.com/guides/zero-based-budgeting-guide Zero-based budgeting assigns every unit of expected income to a category (spending, saving or debt) until the unassigned amount is zero. You rebuild the allocation each period from your real income rather than adjusting last period's plan. 1. **Start from income you already have** — Allocate money that has arrived. For variable income, budget last month's income this month, which takes forecasting out of the process. 2. **Fund fixed obligations first** — Rent, instalments and insurance come off the top. What remains is what you are deciding about. 3. **Fund sinking funds next** — Divide known irregular costs (annual premiums, replacements, festivals) by the months until they are due and assign that amount now. 4. **Allocate the remainder to the end** — Spread what is left across variable categories and savings until the unassigned amount reaches zero. Zero is the point: unassigned money gets spent by default. 5. **Reallocate rather than overspend** — When a category runs out, move money from another category in the open. That reassignment is the decision the method exists to force. **How is zero-based budgeting different from the 50/30/20 rule?** The 50/30/20 rule sets three broad proportions and leaves the detail alone. Zero-based budgeting assigns every unit of income to a specific category each period. It is more work and correspondingly more precise. **Does zero-based budgeting mean spending everything?** No. Savings and debt repayment are assignments like any other. The budget balances at zero because nothing is left unassigned, not because the account is empty. ### How to track UPI expenses without logging every ₹20 payment URL: https://chillars.com/guides/how-to-track-upi-expenses Track UPI expenses by logging anything above a threshold you set (₹200 is a common one) as it happens, then reconciling the remainder as a single 'small payments' entry each evening against your bank balance. Chasing every micro-payment is what makes people quit in week two. 1. **Pick a threshold and honour it** — Anything at or above the threshold gets its own entry with a category. Anything below it is swept up once a day. The threshold is the whole trick. 2. **Sweep the small payments once daily** — Each evening, compare your app's balance with your bank's and record the difference as one uncategorised expense. It takes twenty seconds and keeps the balance honest. 3. **Give each UPI app its own account only if it holds money** — A UPI app that pays straight from your bank is not a separate account. A wallet with a stored balance is one, so track it as one. 4. **Track cashback as income** — Recording a ₹40 cashback as income keeps the original expense at its real amount, which is what you want when you review category spending later. 5. **Reconcile against the statement monthly** — Once a month, compare the month's total against your bank statement. The gap is your sweep error, and it should be shrinking. **Should every UPI payment be a separate transaction?** No. Log payments above a threshold individually and sweep the rest into one daily entry. The detail on a ₹20 payment is worth less than the habit it costs you. **Does Chillar's format amounts in lakh and crore?** Yes. With the locale set to en-IN, amounts group in the Indian system with a rupee symbol, as in ₹12,34,567.89, throughout the app, including exports and charts. ### How to switch expense trackers without losing your history URL: https://chillars.com/guides/how-to-switch-expense-trackers Switch expense trackers by exporting from the old app before you cancel anything, importing the CSV with an explicit column mapping, and then verifying three account balances by hand against the old app. If those three match, the rest almost certainly did too. 1. **Export before you cancel** — Export your full history while the old account is still active. You cannot ask a shut-down app for your data later, which is how Mint's users lost theirs. 2. **Open the CSV and read the header row** — Check the date format, whether amounts are signed or have a separate type column, and which delimiter is used. Five minutes here saves an import you have to undo. 3. **Map the columns explicitly** — A guessed mapping is right until it is wrong, and nothing warns you. Confirm each column against a live preview of the first rows before committing. 4. **Import once, then check the row count** — Compare the number of imported transactions with the number of data rows in the file. A mismatch means rows were skipped, and the skip reasons are worth reading. 5. **Verify three balances by hand** — Pick your largest account, your smallest, and one you rarely use, and compare each balance with the old app. Three matching balances is strong evidence the whole import landed. **Will I lose my categories when I switch?** Not if the export includes them. Chillar's creates any account or category named in the file during import, so your existing category names come across and keep their transactions attached. **What if I import the same file twice?** Chillar's gives every imported row a deterministic id derived from the import and the row number, so re-running the same import updates the same rows instead of duplicating them. ### Chillar's as a Mint alternative: what carries over and what does not URL: https://chillars.com/compare/mint-alternative Chillar's replaces Mint's manual tracking, budgeting and reporting, and is free to use with full data export. It does not replace Mint's automatic bank sync or credit-score monitoring: you enter transactions by hand or import them from CSV. **Does Chillar's sync with my bank like Mint did?** No. Chillar's has no bank connection. Transactions are added manually, with quick-add, or imported from a CSV file. That is a real trade-off in convenience, and the reason no banking credential is ever stored. **Can I import my Mint export into Chillar's?** Yes, if you exported your Mint data as CSV before the service closed. The import wizard lets you map the columns and previews the result before anything is written. ### Chillar's as a Walnut alternative for Indian users URL: https://chillars.com/compare/walnut-alternative Chillar's gives Indian users rupee formatting in lakh and crore, loan tracking between people, multi-currency accounts and full data export, free of charge. Unlike Walnut it does not read SMS to detect transactions, so you enter or import every transaction yourself. **Does Chillar's read my SMS to detect transactions?** No. Chillar's is a web app and never reads your messages. Transactions are added with quick-add or imported from CSV, which is slower than SMS parsing and gives the app no access to your messages. **Does Chillar's show amounts in lakh and crore?** Yes. With the locale set to en-IN, every amount in the app, its charts and its exports groups in the Indian system with a rupee symbol. ### Chillar's vs Money Manager: an honest comparison URL: https://chillars.com/compare/money-manager-alternative Both apps are manual expense trackers with budgets and reports. Chillar's is free, browser-based and exports everything; Money Manager is a mature mobile app with a paid tier and a longer feature history in areas like recurring reports. **Can I import my Money Manager data into Chillar's?** Yes. Money Manager is one of the nine apps with a guided CSV import flow, including the column mapping and date format its exports use. ### Does the 50/30/20 rule work in India? URL: https://chillars.com/blog/50-30-20-rule-india Partly. The 20% savings target transfers well and is worth defending. The 50% needs ceiling usually does not, because metro rent and family support push needs past it. The practical adaptation is to keep savings at 20% and let needs and wants absorb the difference. **What savings rate should I target in India?** Twenty per cent of take-home pay is a reasonable floor and transfers directly from the 50/30/20 rule. Households without employer-provided retirement contributions often target higher, closer to thirty per cent. ### Why an expense tracker must not store money as a float URL: https://chillars.com/blog/money-is-not-a-float Binary floating-point numbers cannot represent most decimal fractions exactly, so 0.1 + 0.2 evaluates to 0.30000000000000004. In a money app the error accumulates across thousands of rows and surfaces as totals that disagree with the transactions they are made of. **How does Chillar's store amounts?** As NUMERIC(19,4) in Postgres and as decimal strings handled by big.js in the browser. No amount is ever a JavaScript number in the arithmetic path; conversion to a number happens only at the final formatting step for display. ## Releases ### 0.10.0 — Computed insights (2026-08-01) - Subscription detection from your own history: repeating merchants, matched to a cadence - Period-over-period category changes, sorted by the size of the change in money - A spending forecast and a health score, both of which say so when there is not enough history - Category suggestions drawn from what you filed similar transactions under before ### 0.9.0 — Marketing site, structured data and locales (2026-08-01) - Public site: features, pricing, guides, comparisons, glossary and FAQ - en-US and en-IN locales, with lakh and crore grouping throughout the app - Structured data, sitemap, robots and llms.txt for search and AI assistants ### 0.8.0 — Settings, offline and reminders (2026-08-01) - Eight settings sections including exchange-rate overrides and feature flags - Installable progressive web app with an offline write queue - Daily reminder notifications and weekly or monthly email digests ### 0.7.0 — Reports, analytics, search and data import (2026-07-31) - Report builder with every filter dimension, shareable as a URL - Analytics: category pie, income and expense trend, net-worth line, heatmap - Export to JSON, CSV, XLSX and PDF; CSV import wizard for nine apps - Ivy Wallet backup import, and ⌘K search everywhere ### 0.6.0 — Planning: budgets, loans and planned payments (2026-07-31) - Weekly, monthly and yearly budgets scoped to categories and accounts - Loans with part-payments and separate interest records - Recurring planned payments with month-end handling and auto-settle ### 0.5.0 — Accounts, categories, transactions and the dashboard (2026-07-31) - Multi-currency accounts, categories and tags - Transaction editor with an expression calculator in the amount field - Virtualized ledger with keyset pagination and bulk operations - Dashboard: net worth, buffer, upcoming and overdue, day-grouped history