Aura — Personal Finance App

The problem

Managing personal finances is tedious when you're juggling multiple tools — spreadsheets, banking apps, and notes scattered across devices. I wanted a single, fast, private app that gives me a clear picture of where my money goes without subscriptions or ads.

What I built

Aura is a full-stack personal finance web application deployed at aura.potest.uy. It lets users track income and expenses, categorize transactions, and visualize spending patterns over time.

Built with Next.js (App Router), TypeScript, and deployed on Vercel. The design is intentionally minimal — dark theme, fast interactions, and zero bloat.

Key features

• Transaction tracking — Log income and expenses with custom categories
• Budget management — Set monthly budgets per category and track progress
• Visual dashboards — Charts and summaries to spot spending patterns at a glance
• Privacy-first — Your data stays yours; no third-party analytics or tracking
• Responsive design — Works equally well on mobile and desktop

Technical decisions

The app is built as a full-stack Next.js application using the App Router. Data persistence is handled server-side with no client-side storage of sensitive financial data. The UI uses Tailwind CSS for styling with a custom dark theme.

Deploying on Vercel's free tier keeps costs at zero while providing global CDN distribution, automatic HTTPS, and preview deployments for every change.

What I learned

Building Aura from scratch sharpened my ability to design clean data models, manage state across Server and Client Components in Next.js App Router, and ship a polished product end-to-end — from architecture to deployment — without a team.