Press Kit

Fact sheet

Descriptions

The following copy may be used as is or shortened.

One sentence

GetALife is a budgeting app for Android and iOS that gives every euro a job, captures expenses by voice, and keeps all financial data encrypted on the device.

One paragraph

GetALife is a budgeting app for people who have started and abandoned several household ledgers already. Instead of logging expenses after the fact, it assigns the money you already have to categories in advance, the digital version of the envelope method. An expense takes one spoken sentence, progress shows up as a league system, and all financial data sits on the device encrypted with AES-256. GetALife is built by a single developer from Tann near Fulda, Germany, with six years of professional experience and an AI-assisted way of working. It runs on Android and iOS in 20 languages, is free to try for seven days and then available as a subscription, with no advertising.

The full story

Most household ledgers fail at the same point. You diligently record every expense for two weeks, look at an honest but useless list at the end of the month, and still have no idea whether you can afford the weekend. Logging is not the same as planning.

Michael Hofmann saw the difference in his own account. Living in Munich, he used an app built on zero-based budgeting: every euro is given a job in advance, spread across categories, the digital version of the cash envelope method. In that period he paid off the remaining 5,000 euros of his student loan and took two holidays, one of them a crossing of the Alps that cost more than 2,000 euros including gear. Not because there was suddenly more money, but because every euro had a job. That was the moment it clicked.

The German apps he tried afterwards did not convince him. So he built the one he wanted to use himself.

That it turned into a business has to do with a journey. Hofmann quit his job to travel the world, at a time when software developers found a new position whenever they wanted one. While he was away, AI got good enough that this very job market largely fell away. Returning to employment turned into the decision to try it on his own, which had been his wish for as long as he can remember. In his words: "That time is now."

That puts him in the middle of an industry currently rearranging itself. Among app developers there is a gold rush mood and fierce competition at the same time, because once AI makes building cheap for everyone, the software alone is no longer a moat. What decides is marketing and distribution, brand and trust. Meanwhile cheaply generated AI ad videos flood the channels, and apps have earned the same label as any other AI mass production: AI slop. In between, stories of overnight breakthroughs appear almost daily.

In that setting GetALife bets on what cannot be produced over a weekend: an app that encrypts its own data, runs in 20 languages, and has a developer who puts his name to it.

Four things set the app apart from the familiar names in its field:

Expenses by voice. A sentence like "groceries 47 euros" is enough; the app fills in the amount, the category and the payee. That removes the hurdle most household ledgers die on, namely typing at the checkout.

Encryption on the device. Balances, categories and names are stored in the local database encrypted with AES-256-GCM. The key is derived from a master password the user sets. Without that password the data is unreadable, including to the developer. Whatever syncs to the cloud is stored on servers in Frankfurt.

A reason to come back tomorrow. A league system makes progress visible and comparable. A chapter-based narrative layer is planned on top. The thinking behind it: planning and recording largely take care of themselves over time, so the reason to open the app has to come from somewhere else.

One person rather than a corporation. There is no team behind GetALife, just a developer with six years of professional experience doing the work AI-assisted: old school, new tools. A project of this scope would not be feasible for one person otherwise. Subscriptions are the only source of revenue, with no investors, no ads and no data resale.

Features

• Budgeting follows the zero-based method: every euro is assigned to a category in advance, nothing is left unplanned.
• Expenses can be captured by voice, with no form to fill in and no typing.
• Accounts of every kind live in one place, from current accounts and cash to loans and mortgages.
• The loan detail view shows the payoff curve and models extra payments in a simulator.
• Net worth and financial runway are calculated continuously: how many months your savings would carry you without income.
• Savings goals make progress visible, from an emergency fund to a down payment.
• A league system with six divisions rewards budgets that hold.
• All sensitive fields are encrypted on the device, protected by a master password and optional biometrics.
• The app works offline, speaks 20 languages and ships with a light and a dark appearance.

Screen recording

18 seconds through the app: budget, accounts, insights, transactions and the switch to dark appearance. No audio, free for editorial use.

The file is included in the archive below. Other excerpts or a longer version are available on request.

Imagery

Full-resolution screenshots of the Android version, without frames or marketing copy, four views each in light and dark appearance. Click any image for the original file. The figures shown are sample data. Editorial use is free of charge, a credit is enough.

Download everything (ZIP, 4.3 MB)

The archive also contains the app icon at 1024, 512 and 256 pixels, the logo and the screen recording. Further material is available on request.

About the developer

Michael Hofmann is from Tann near Fulda, Germany, and has been building apps professionally for six years, among others for Favendo, NEXT Munich and stock3. He quit his job to travel the world; while he was away, AI changed the developer job market so fundamentally that instead of returning to employment he decided to work for himself. Since December 2025 he has been building GetALife on his own, the app he wanted as a user after paying off his student loan with the same method.

He describes his way of working as a mix of both: an old-school developer who knows how software is written by hand, doing that work AI-assisted today. That is how one person ships an app that runs on Android and iOS, is translated into 20 languages and encrypts its own data. Three years ago this would have taken a team.

Development is funded without investors and without advertising.

Contact

For questions, interview requests, additional imagery or review access, a plain email is enough.