Budget app without linking a bank account: what matters

What "without a bank connection" actually means

A budget app without a bank connection asks nothing from your bank. You type in what you spend, the app sorts it into categories, adds it up and warns you when a limit is near. The money never moves through the app; it only keeps score.

Plenty of apps elsewhere work the other way: you hand over your bank login and they pull every transaction automatically. In Algeria that door does not exist. No bank and no Algérie Poste service offers an official way for an outside app to read your transactions — the only official app for your CCP and Edahabia is BaridiMob. So an app asking for your card number or password is not offering you a shortcut; it is asking for something it should never have.

Why that fits how money moves in Algeria

Look at how money actually moves here. Most daily spending — the marché, the épicerie, the taxi — is cash. Meanwhile the cards multiply: by the end of 2025, more than 21.8 million payment cards were in circulation in Algeria, around 17.7 million Edahabia cards from Algérie Poste and 4.2 million bank-issued CIB cards, according to the GIE Monétique's 2025 review. Yet the World Bank's latest Global Findex round found that only 35.3% of Algerian adults held an account at a bank or similar provider in 2024. Many people sit between the two worlds: an account for salary or bills, cash for everything else.

So your money lives in several pockets at once, and it moves by hand. A tracker built around one wallet per payment method mirrors that reality: a cash wallet for the souk, an Edahabia wallet for the post office and online orders, a CIB wallet for the card from your bank — and, if you like, a wallet in euros for a project, at the rate you choose. If your salary arrives in cash, there is no "connection" to make in the first place.

There is a second, quieter reason. Cash is invisible: it leaves without a trace unless you write it down. Psychologists call the effect mental accounting, and we explain in detail why your salary vanishes so fast . Noting each purchase in the right wallet turns the invisible visible — the same note takes three seconds with a card and matters even more with a banknote.

The features that actually matter

Before downloading anything, put the app in front of this list:

• One wallet per payment method — cash, Edahabia, CIB — each with its own balance, plus foreign-currency wallets at the rate you choose.
• A monthly budget with a limit per category and a warning near the limit, not just a list of past spending.
• Savings goals with a target month: the sheep of Aïd, the rentrée, a daret share (a rotating savings circle), Umrah.
• Debts and installments: what you owe and what you are owed, with each payment recorded.
• Recurring entries for salary, rent, internet and subscriptions, so the month's skeleton fills itself.
• Statistics by day and by category, to see whether the weekend or the Sunday market eats the money.
• Free, in Arabic, French and English — and no bank account anywhere in the settings.

Everything else — colours, streaks, badges — is decoration. A tracker you stop opening after a week is worth nothing, so pick the simplest one that covers the list. If more than one hand spends in the house, the same list holds: each person notes their own purchases and the statistics stay honest.

A month in three wallets, worked in dinars

Say Karim is paid 65 000 DA a month on the 27th, part on the card, part in cash. In October he splits it: 30 000 DA in the cash wallet, 25 000 DA on Edahabia, 10 000 DA in the CIB account. Then he sets limits that match real life, not an ideal month:

The numbers tell the story at a glance: rent is closed, the phone-and-internet limit is already spent — the app warned him before he added a second streaming subscription — and groceries have 6 500 DA for the second half of October. The 4 000 DA of headroom under the salary covers the unforeseen. The three wallets stay separate in daily life — cash for the marché, Edahabia for the épicerie and bills, CIB for the online order — but one budget watches over all three. That is the whole trick.

What a safe budget app never asks for

The rule is short: a budget app needs no secrets. Not your card number, not your PIN, not the one-time SMS code, not your BaridiMob password. If anything asks for these "to connect" or "to verify your card", close it and delete it.

This is not paranoia; it is official advice. Algérie Poste has issued repeated warnings — in 2024 and again in 2025 — about fake SMS messages and pages that imitate it to steal account details and Edahabia information, and it reminds customers that its only official apps are BaridiMob and ECCP. In September 2024 the Ministry of Post ran a national awareness campaign whose first rule was to never share your card number, password or PIN with anyone.

For balances, you already have the official tools: BaridiMob for CCP and Edahabia, your bank's own app for the CIB card. The tracker does a different job — it tells you where the money went, which no balance screen can do.

Start tonight, in 15 minutes

1. Create one wallet per pocket: cash, Edahabia, CIB — and one in euros only if you are truly saving for travel, at the rate you use.
2. Set each wallet's balance today: count the cash in your pocket, check BaridiMob or your bank's app for the cards.
3. Note yesterday's and today's spending while you still remember it — a few seconds each.
4. Set five to seven category limits based on last month's real spending, not on good intentions.
5. Add recurring entries: the salary on its payday, the rent, internet, subscriptions.
6. Open one savings goal with a target month — small at first, say 3 000 DA towards the sheep of Aïd.
7. Give it two weeks, then look at the statistics on a quiet Sunday evening and adjust one limit.

Fifteen minutes tonight, two minutes a day after that, a five-minute review once a week. Our guide to planning a monthly budget, from salary to salary helps you choose the limits, and the guide to keeping track of debts and installments shows how to handle the fridge bought on credit and the cousin's loan.

Where Jibi fits in

Jibi was built on exactly this idea. It is free, works in Arabic, French and English, and gives you wallets for cash, the Edahabia card and a CIB account, a monthly budget with a warning near each limit, savings goals with a target month, a debt and installment tracker, and recurring entries. It never connects to a bank, to Algérie Poste or BaridiMob, and never asks for card details: you note what you spend, it keeps the score. It works on the web and as an app for iPhone and Android — start at the Jibi home page .