Frequently Asked Questions

FinFam is free!

We're on a mission to raise financial literacy and make financial planning accessible to everyone, so even if we add a premium tier in the future, we plan to keep it free for everyone.

No, FinFam is neither a budgeting app, nor an investment platform.

FinFam is a collaborative financial planning tool that operates at a level above traditional budgeting and investing apps. We don't track your daily expenses or move money. Instead, we help you make the strategic decisions that come before those actions.

In today's rapidly evolving economic landscape, the hard part isn't tracking your spending or buying index funds. The hard part is deciding how to allocate your resources. Should you pay down debt or invest? Rent or buy? What's the right emergency fund size for your situation?

Think of FinFam as your financial strategy layer. Where you explore scenarios with the people that matter, get expert perspectives, and make informed decisions about your financial future. Then you can use your favorite budgeting and investment apps to execute and track those decisions.

Not at all! FinFam is designed to make financial planning accessible to everyone.

Our mission is to ensure that financial literacy and smart money management should be accessible to everyone, no matter how specific your needs may seem.

You can start by exploring expert Views to learn, then build your knowledge as you create your own financial plans. Finn, our AI assistant, is there to help explain concepts and fill in gaps.

Well, me, (Mahmoud). But also you!

After a decade building fintech and wiki software, I wanted to bring the spirit of free and open source software to the financial space. Transparency, collaboration, and sharing are our best tools for building good financial literacy and habits.

Learn more about FinFam and our philosophy.

Yes! FinFam is built for collaborative financial planning.

When you're ready to share your plan, invite friends, family, or anyone you trust. Turn tough money topics into clear, helpful conversations.

Smart money moves happen when people work together. FinFam gives you the tools to explore your financial future confidently with the people who matter most.

Views are expert explanations and calculations you can find in our View Marketplace. Get smart tips without sharing your data, scheduling meetings, or making any commitments.

Spaces are collaborative financial planning workbooks where you save your favorite Views and track all your holdings (assets, liabilities, income, expenses). Think of them as your personal financial planning workspace.

You can explore public Spaces to see how others organize their financial planning.

Absolutely! The numbers you put in FinFam don't have to be your real balances. FinFam is built for scenario modeling.

Play with fake numbers, explore "what if" situations, and get your questions answered. Think of it as your financial sandbox.

This is perfect for exploring different financial strategies without revealing your actual financial situation.

Finn is our AI financial assistant designed to help you make sense of your financial situation.

Unlike generic AI that gives textbook answers, Finn knows your complete financial picture and can provide personalized insights. Finn helps fill in gaps and connect expert Views with your personal context.

Think of Finn as your financial research assistant - great for explanations and analysis, but the final decisions are always yours.

FinFam uses discrete event simulation and so point-in-time estimates can vary somewhat. For instance, if you make $200k a year, you might find that exactly 365 days from now you are not exactly $200k's worth of income richer, because your paycheck arrives at the end of the week, on the 367th day. Still, numbers should be close. If something doesn't look right, report a bug (button in the top navigation).

SForm is FinFam's form definition language, built on top of the well-established spreadsheet model. It allows us to translate spreadsheets into miniature web applications that FinFam calls Views.

SForm evolved from the very mature XLSForm format, itself based on ODK XForm. SForm is not designed to be backwards compatible to either, giving us freedom to evolve the format as the community grows.

SForm is still in its early days and we hope to add many features based on community feedback, so keep us posted if you've got ideas!

Yes! At FinFam, everything is private by default.

Our sharing settings are modeled after Google Sheets - you control exactly who sees what, when. Share with your spouse, your advisor, or your trusted friends. Or keep it completely private. Your call.

Read our full approach in our Privacy Policy.

No, never! FinFam never asks for your account numbers. Ever.

Because FinFam is designed for rapidly modeling financial scenarios, we took a novel approach to our sync feature. We import screenshots of your existing financial data, from bank statements to budget trackers, like Monarch Money, Rocket Money, and YNAB.

When you use our Magic Sync to import data, we automatically strip out identifying information, if any is detected. You should never share account numbers with anyone, anywhere online. We designed FinFam so you don't have to.

Only the people you choose. You have complete control over who sees what information.

By default, everything is private to you. When you're ready to share, you can:

• Keep your Space completely private
• Share with specific people (spouse, advisor, trusted friends)
• Publish your Space publicly for the world to see

You control exactly who sees what, and when, similar to a Google Sheet.

Anything you're seeing on FinFam was explicitly shared by the person who owns it.

Yes! On FinFam everything is private by default, but you can take that a step further. Let us count the ways:

1. You don't need to log in to use FinFam. You can browse public Spaces and use public Views without an account. You only need an account to save your own Spaces and Views.
2. You can register pseudonymously. We don't require any identifying information to use FinFam, just confirmation that you're over 13. We'll even randomly generate a username for you.
3. You can create multiple accounts. Even if you already registered, nothing stops you from creating another account. Just use a different email address and follow the terms of use.

The point of FinFam isn't to put your whole financial picture on public display (though you can, if you want). The point is to help you make better financial decisions, with the people that matter most.