Any good businessman/businesswoman will tell you that you need to spend money to make money. Success or failure is entirely motivated by the investments you make. The second part is true, even if you don’t actually have money to invest and you are barely scraping up money for rent. That is why a simple budgeting application like Pocket Lint might make a difference when it comes to your financial situation.

Although the application is intended as a joke, it does provide simple but efficient features to let you know exactly what your account status is.

The Looks

The Pocket Lint design is very simple and displays all the information you need in one window divided into two areas. On top, you will be able to see your incomes (marked in green) and your expenses (marked in pink). For every item, you will be able to see the name, general information and the amount. On the left, each will have a checkbox and will be added to your monthly statistics that can be seen on the bottom of the window, if it is checked or removed when unchecked.

Right under the monthly statistics, you can see the add income and add expense buttons. At least, this is the window appearance if you disable the “silly stuff” from the Preferences window. If not, you will also be able to see the Joe Pesci Proximity Alert Meter, the Win the Lottery and the Graph button.

The Works

The first time you open Pocket Lint, an account is created and all the information you add will automatically be saved in that particular account when quitting and restored at launch. You can add new incomes or expenses using the buttons on the bottom of the window or through the Budget menu. The generated list can be sorted manually by pressing Command+1 to move it up one place and Command +2 to move it down. If you want to delete a certain item, select it and press delete. The action cannot be undone, so make sure that is what you want to do.

When adding a new income, you must specify the name, amount, if it is a monthly or hourly payment (in the second situation, you must set the hourly rate, how many hours per day you work and how many days each month, and Pocket Lint will calculate the income automatically), and the tax percent if taxes are applied. The last feature, “Make believe,” is intended as a joke and once enabled, the current income will not be added to the monthly total. Still, if you intend to print the account situation, the make believe items with all the other joke entries will also be displayed.

When it comes to expenses, besides name and amount, you can also set the payment method: check, cash, credit card, direct debit or, to amuse yourselves, collected by Joe Pesci. In each case, you can specify if the late payment includes fees. The last method includes by default broken kneecaps in case of late payment.

If you get depressed while looking at your account status, you can amuse yourselves by playing the lottery for virtual winnings, see the graph of your income, commit virtual acts of desperation like robbing a convenience store, gamble your savings on horse races or sell one of your kidneys on the black market.

Still, when things get tough, the tough gets going, so Pocket link helps you check on eBay for how much you could take for you Mac and locate Joe Pesci so you know what to expect.

The Good

All jokes aside, Pocket Lint gives you the possibility to actually see your financial situation, how much money you make per month or per day and decide what you can or cannot afford. After all, acceptance is the first step if you want to move on.
 
The Bad

Even if the expenses and the incomes are separated by color, a better delimitation should give the user an extended view upon the situation. The same observation applies in case of the monthly total and the daily average. If the user could see how much money they make and how much money they spend each day, then they would understand whether a certain purchase is a good idea or not. Of course, you can do that by checking or un-checking items in the main list but that could take a while.

The Truth

Pocket Lint is a very simple, yet efficient way to see where all your money goes and make informed decisions when going shopping. Besides, you must appreciate the humor because it’s priceless, isn’t it?

Here are some snapshots of the application in action: