Blog
How to catch every spend without logging it by hand, how much you can spend today, and how the app is built, in the open.
Money guides
- How much can I spend per day? The safe-to-spend methodHow much can you spend per day? Take pay, set bills and savings aside first, then split the rest by the days to payday. A worked example, in dollars.
- How to Track Spending Automatically on iPhoneTrack spending automatically on iPhone with Apple Pay, receipt photos, bank alert emails and voice. Every spend lands in one inbox; close the day at 6pm.
- Best Expense Tracker Apps for iPhone in 2026An honest look at the best expense tracker apps for iPhone in 2026: YNAB, Copilot, Monarch, Rocket Money, Spendee and 6pm. Prices, strengths, trade-offs.
- Budgeting as a Couple Without Sharing PasswordsHow to budget as a couple without merging everything: shared pots for rent, trips and the wedding, private everyday spending, and no passwords swapped.
- Envelope budgeting vs one daily number: which fits you?Envelope budgeting, 50/30/20, zero-based or one daily number? How each method works, who it suits, and where a safe-to-spend number beats categories.
- Holiday spending plan: pay future you firstA holiday spending plan that survives January: list gifts, travel and food, set the total aside in a pot, keep paying future you, and spend the rest daily.
- How to Log Expenses by Voice on iPhoneLog expenses by voice: say “lunch, twelve dollars” and 6pm pulls out the amount and category. Works with Siri, in English or Vietnamese.
- How to Scan Receipts to Track Expenses on iPhoneScan receipts to track expenses: 6pm finds the receipt, reads the total on your iPhone, splits group bills and marks utility bills paid. Free.
- How to Track Spending from QR Code PaymentsQR payments are fast and easy to forget. Here's how to track spending from QR codes in Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore, plus what 6pm can and can't pay.
- Put Your Daily Budget on Your iPhone Lock ScreenAdd a budget widget to your iPhone Lock Screen and see what you can spend today without unlocking. Step by step, plus Home Screen widgets and controls.
- Surviving Black Friday 2026 with one daily numberHow to not overspend on Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2026: turn your cart into dollars per day until payday, ask before checkout, close the day at 6pm.
- Turn Bank Alert Emails Into an Expense LogYour bank already emails you every card charge. Forward those alerts to one address and 6pm turns them into an expense log, sorted and ready to review.
- Where Does My Money Go? A 7-Day Small-Leak AuditPaycheck gone by the 20th? Find the small spends that drain it: delivery fees, lattes, forgotten subscriptions, Venmo splits. A 7-day audit, with the math.
- Why Expense Tracking Fails After Two Weeks (and the Fix)Most people quit tracking expenses within weeks because logging is a chore. The fix: let your phone catch spends and close the day in one minute.
- YNAB Alternatives for People Who Hate BudgetingLove the idea of YNAB, hate the homework? Five YNAB alternatives compared on price, effort and bank sync, from Copilot and Monarch to a one-number app.
Engineering
How 6pm is built with Expo, React Native, Skia and Swift. The code is open source.
- Native feel in Expo: Reanimated 4, form sheets, hapticsHow 6pm makes an Expo app feel native: Reanimated 4 worklets on the UI thread, velocity-aware springs, real iOS form sheets and a small haptics vocabulary.
- One camera for QR codes and receipts with Apple VisionHow 6pm's Scan finds QR codes and receipts in one AVCaptureSession, outlines paper live with Vision, reads it on device, and the Android ML Kit port.
- Reading VietQR on the phone: TLV, NAPAS and 28 bank appsHow 6pm parses VietQR on device (EMVCo TLV, CRC-16, NAPAS 247), tells foreign codes apart, and hands a payment to 28 Vietnamese bank apps filled in.
- Sky shaders at 120fps in React Native with SkiaHow 6pm draws a time-of-day sky in one Skia canvas: baked blur gradients, a halftone shader, noise grain, rain tiles and tilt-driven living scenes.
- Why we open-sourced our money app6pm is Apache 2.0. What the code shows: SQLCipher on the phone, hashed device tokens, sealed receipt email, ciphertext-only backup, and what does leave.
- Widgets, Controls and Live Activities from an Expo appHow 6pm ships WidgetKit widgets, iOS 18 controls, a Live Activity and an App Intent from Expo, with no database in the extensions and no logic in Swift.
Khánh QuốcFounder of 6pm, Odd Eggs
Khánh Quốc builds 6pm at Odd Eggs, a small app studio in Saigon. The whole app, server included, is open source, so every claim here can be checked against the code. github.com/at6pm/6pm