A free expense tracker for the Philippines, and how to use it

It is the 14th. Your salary lands tomorrow, and you are trying to work out where the last one went. Some of it left through GCash, some as cash for the jeepney and the carinderia, some on a card for something you now only half remember. Your bank app shows a list of transfers. It does not show the 80 pesos here and 120 pesos there that add up to the real answer.

What to look for in an expense tracker in the Philippines

Most expense tracker advice is written for people whose money lives in one bank account. Yours probably does not. Check any app against this list before you put a month of entries into it.

• Pesos by default. Amounts should show as ₱ with no conversion step. If you also pay for things in dollars, like an overseas subscription, the app should keep the original amount too.
• Cash is a first-class account. A lot of daily spending, such as fares, market runs and the neighbourhood store, never touches a bank. An app that only tracks linked accounts will miss it.
• No bank login required. An app that depends on a bank connection only works for the banks it supports. One that does not need the connection has nothing to fail on.
• Fast entry. If logging a 45 peso coffee takes eight taps, you will stop by the second week.
• A free tier you can live on. Check what is capped before you commit your history.

How to set up Cashmonki around Philippine money

Wallets are the part that makes this work for pesos. In multiple wallets, each account keeps its own balance, so your cash wallet does not quietly absorb transfers that belong to GCash. The free version allows two wallets, so most people will pick the two where money moves most, usually cash and their e-wallet.

Logging quickly

You can enter a transaction by hand, or open Ask and type something like "150 lunch, 40 jeep" and confirm the result. Ask reads the sentence and proposes the transactions; nothing is saved until you approve it. It needs an internet connection, and the free version allows 3 messages a day.

For anything with a printed receipt, receipt scanning reads the merchant, amount, date, currency and a suggested category from a photo. The free version allows 3 scans a day. Scanning suits the supermarket and the mall. It is no use for the tricycle ride, which gives you no paper, so typing it is the right move.

Tracking a weekly or half-month budget

Philippine pay and spending rhythms rarely match a calendar month. Rent or utilities arrive on one date, salary on another, and the last days before payday are the lean ones. Tracking by the pay period, rather than the month, makes the numbers feel real.

A simple split that many people start with:

1. Fixed bills first. Rent, electricity, water, internet and any loan payments. Add them as recurring items so you do not retype them. The free version allows 2 recurring items.
2. Savings next. Move it on payday, before it can be spent.
3. What is left, divided into weeks. That is your real spending money.

Once you are tracking, the charts show which category is eating the week, which is usually food and transport, and rarely the thing you suspected.

If you spend in more than one currency

Online shopping, a Netflix-style subscription billed in dollars, or money from a relative abroad all mean pesos are not the only currency in your month. Cashmonki supports 30 currencies. Each transaction keeps the currency you entered it in, and totals are shown in your main one, so a 10 dollar charge stays a 10 dollar charge instead of being rounded into a guess.

Where this falls short

Searchers add "reddit" to this query because they want the catch. Here it is.

• iPhone only. There is no Android app and no web version. That rules the app out for anyone on Android, and for a household split across platforms.
• No automatic import. Nothing connects to GCash, Maya or your bank, and there is no way to upload a statement. Every transaction is entered by you.
• The AI parts need data or Wi-Fi. Scanning and Ask do not work offline. Typing entries and viewing what you have saved do.
• Free limits are daily. 3 scans, 3 Ask messages, 2 wallets and 2 recurring items, with no custom categories. A busy grocery day can use up your scans.
• Paid plans exist. Cashmonki Plus and Cashmonki Pro lift the limits. Manual tracking never asks you to pay.

If your data matters to you, it is stored on your phone first, and cloud sync is off until you turn it on.

Your decision

If you have an iPhone, mostly pay in pesos and a mix of cash and e-wallet, and you would rather type a few seconds a day than hand over a bank login, install it and try one pay period. Track every peso for those two weeks, with nothing changed, and see what the chart says. If you are on Android, or want everything imported for you, pick a different tool. For other ways to decide, see how to track expenses without giving up and the case for a budget app with no bank sync.