ReceiptJars

Inspiration

We often lose meaning in the small, everyday tasks and purchases that make up our lives. ReceiptJars was created to make those moments tangible again. Whether it’s buying groceries for a family dinner, grabbing food with friends, or filling up gas for a road trip, these small actions are part of memories that shape who we are. They’re easy to forget, yet they matter. ReceiptJars helps preserve those moments while also supporting mindful spending through budgeting and purchase tracking so you can enjoy life while staying financially aware.

What it does

ReceiptJars scans your receipts and automatically categorizes purchases (groceries, gas, food, etc.), tracks spending amounts, and saves them into personalized stats. It then transforms your receipts into digital stickers that you can use to create collages. Users can customize their collages with receipt stickers, text, colors, and drawings, as well as photos tied to the moment. This makes ReceiptJars both a memory-keeping tool and a financial tracker, allowing users to reflect on everyday moments and share them with friends and family.

How we built it

The repo is a React + Vite application. The package.json shows the vite dev/build scripts (npm run dev, npm run build) and dependencies on React, React DOM, TypeScript, and Vite, which indicates the app is built with Vite’s React tooling and TypeScript support. The README.md describes the project as based on a React Router template, noting features like server-side rendering, HMR, and TailwindCSS, and provides the standard install/dev/build steps (npm install, npm run dev, npm run build).

Challenges we ran into

This was our first time using Figma in a hackathon setting, and we found it challenging to quickly translate ideas into functional designs. Additionally, integrating the Gemini API was difficult especially extracting structured data like store names, purchase totals, and item lists from receipts.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Applying Gemini API into our project was a big accomplishment, it was the first time we used a AI wrapper and it was a huge milestone that we were able to complete this. Our original thoughts were that if this wasnt possible we could manually add it in, which not user friendly. We learned that having goals and sticking to them no matter the difficulties is important.

What we learned

Most importantly, we learned that even small ideas can have meaningful impact when thoughtfully designed. Technically speaking we learned how to rapidly prototype designs in Figma, integrate AI APIs into a real application, then apply them into creating something tangible that create a difference in peoples lives.