Smart Pocket: A Machine Learning–Based Expense Tracker and Spending Predictor

Abstract

Personal financial management has become increasingly challenging in a digital economy characterized by frequent micro-transactions, expanding spending categories, and the growing shift toward cashless payments. Individuals often struggle to monitor their daily expenses, identify spending patterns, and maintain financial discipline without systematic tools. This research presents Smart Pocket, an intelligent expense-tracking and financial-insight system designed to automate expense recognition, predict spending trends, and support users in maintaining budget control. The system utilizes machine learning techniques to classify expenses into categories such as Food, Cloths, Other, and Fruits, while also analyzing spending patterns, budget usage, and category-wise distributions.Through a combination of bar charts, doughnut charts, progress indicators, and time-series visualization, Smart Pocket provides a comprehensive analytical dashboard that transforms raw user expenses into actionable insights. The system demonstrates high accuracy in expense categorization and generates reliable predictions for future spending behavior. Experimental results reveal that users spent ₹4919 of a ₹6000 monthly budget, staying within the recommended spending threshold, and showed identifiable spending peaks and cycles across different days. These insights validated the effectiveness of Smart Pocket in helping users understand their financial habits and optimize their budgeting strategies. The study concludes that integrating machine learning and visual analytics significantly enhances the quality of personal financial management. Smart Pocket not only reduces manual effort in recording expenses but also empowers users to make informed financial decisions and adopt sustainable spending habits. Future improvements may extend into automated bill extraction, advanced forecasting models, and personalized recommendation engines, further enriching the system’s ability to support long-term financial well-being.