"Quid" - My envelope-system budgeting software

In the early 2000s I wanted a good envelope-system budgeting app. There were none. Being a programmer, I decided to write my own. Years later this ended up being a very good decision because it allowed my the opportunity to learn the latest Microsoft development technologies. Things that I don't always get to explore on my day job. There's been a lot that has changed programming on Microsoft's .NET stack along the way...

Simple really, I wanted a short phrase related to "Money". At the time Microsoft already had software called "Microsoft Money".

Quid is a full-featured budgeting software used by my wife and I daily. It includes envelopes for budgeting, recurring paychecks with budgeted allocation, recurring payments, credit-card payments, bank synching, and GPS location. I often tell people how better envelope budgeting is. Assign your money WHEN you get it, not try tracking if after you spend it. And no, it's not publicly available (since I do get asked that).

Below are the various versions over the years...

Quid-WinForms

(no picture of this one)

My first version of Quid started in the early 2000s as a C++ WinForm app connected to a SQL Server database. Looking at my Quid_Release Database, I still have transactions listed that far back!

Quid-WPF

(Mid/Late 2000s) Quid "Tech-refresh" #1. This was when I started cutting my teeth on C#. I re-wrote my C++ WinForms app as a C#/WPF app (pictured here). It used EntityFramework, and relied heavily on INotifyPropertyChanged events.

The database was running locally on my installed SQL Server instance. Therefore I had to be on my PC to get to Quid.

QuidWeb - MVC/.Net Framework

(no picture of this one)

(Early 2010s) After using Quid-WPF for a while, I decided to use Quid to hone my MVC web-development skills. The biggest challenge here was that I still used the WPF desktop version quite a bit, which required a local DB. The solution was to host IIS on my local machine (through a fire-wall of course!).

QuidWeb - MVC/.NET Core

(2016) With .NET Framework being replaced with .NET Core, it was time for (yet another) tech-refresh.

QuidRoid - Android phone app & WCF service

(2017) I decided to venture into phone apps. I started with a .NET WCF service (running on my home IIS), then created an Android app to connect to it.

QuidXam - Xamarin/.NET Core Rest API

(2022) Xamarin is an excellent framework for developing phone apps for both Android and iOS in C#/.NET. I also replaced my previous WCF service with a .NET Core REST API.

My favorite thing about this app was taking advantage of my GPS location. When I would go to a store, it would record my location, along with which envelope I used. So each time I returned to O'Reilly Auto, I would click that location and it would pre-fill both the Description, and Envelope (Car Maintenance).

QuidMaui - Microsoft MAUI + AI

(2026) Currently under construction...