Privacy statement
Summary
Your budget stays on your computer. My Budget Buddy keeps everything in a file in your Documents folder. It is never sent to the publisher or to anyone else. The app does not connect to your bank, needs no account with us, and contains no advertising, analytics, tracking or crash reporting.
What the app stores
- What you enter: your bank balance and its updates, spending, deposits and transfers, bills and their payments, repeating deposits, and your savings balance.
- Credit cards you add: the name you give each card, the last 4 digits if you choose to enter them, the limit, interest rates, minimum payment, due day, the issuer's phone number and website, any notes, and the card's charges and payments.
- Settings such as your pay schedule and round-up choices.
The app is not meant to hold full card or account numbers, Social Security numbers, card security codes or passwords, and it refuses to save text that looks like them.
Where it is stored
In the file budget.json in the My Budget Buddy folder in your Documents folder (or the Budget Tracker folder, if you used the app under its earlier name, Budget Tracker), with one dated backup per day in the Backups folder beside it (the last 30 are kept). If your Documents folder is backed up to OneDrive, Microsoft keeps a copy under your OneDrive account and its terms. The publisher has no copy of, and no access to, any of it.
Password protection
You can turn on a password in Settings. The budget file and new backups are then encrypted with AES-256, using a key made from your password, and older backups that weren't encrypted are deleted. Your password itself is never stored. If you choose Remember on this computer, the key is kept on that computer, protected by Windows for your user account. An optional reset passcode is also kept only on that computer, protected by Windows, and is erased after 5 wrong tries. If the password is lost and there is no reset passcode, the budget can't be opened, and the publisher cannot recover it.
What leaves your computer
- Nothing you enter. The app makes no internet connections of its own.
- Links you click, such as a card issuer's website or the support email address, open in your web browser or email program.
- Reports print to the printer you choose.
Microsoft Store
If you install the app from the Microsoft Store, Microsoft handles the download, updates, the subscription and its payments under Microsoft's own privacy statement. The publisher never sees payment details. The publisher receives only the anonymous, aggregated install and crash statistics Microsoft provides to all Store publishers.
Children
The app is intended for adults managing household money and is not directed at children.
Changes
If this statement changes, the new version will appear on this page with a new date.
Questions about this statement: support@akhtech.org