Most people do not have a money problem so much as a money-visibility problem. The current account says one thing, the card app says another, three subscriptions renew quietly, and the only place the whole picture ever comes together is a spreadsheet somebody maintains by hand.
Where this stands. Trove is live at trove.cool. The figures below describe the problem Trove is made for. They are not results from using it.
India · The problem
What money asks of India.
Trove is made for India first, so India is where we looked hardest. Every figure below was collected in 2024 or later by a statistics office, a financial regulator or the World Bank, and links to where it came from.
905millionhours a year
recorded by adults in India paying household bills and budgeting.
A floor, not the whole. When several things happen in a half-hour slot, India’s time-use diary keeps only those that take 10 minutes or more, so a quick bill payment usually leaves no trace.
MoSPI Time Use Survey, 2024. Computed from the person file: docs/03_RESEARCH/impact-research/derived/tus2024-household-finance-time.json, age_15plus, finance_351_352_B.
38minutes
spent on the day by the adults who paid bills or budgeted.
0.36% of adults recorded doing so on an average day. Younger adults did so least often.
Share of adults who did it on an average day
Ages 15–24: 0.15%
Ages 25 and over: 0.42%
Men 15–59: 0.46%
Women 15–59: 0.22%
MoSPI Time Use Survey, 2024. Computed from the person file: docs/03_RESEARCH/impact-research/derived/tus2024-household-finance-time.json, age_15plus, finance_351_352_B.
753millionadults
could not raise emergency money within 30 days, or could only with great difficulty.
That is 70% of adults in India aged 15 and over, in 2024.
World Bank Global Findex, 2024. GlobalFindexDatabase2025.csv, fin24aN and fin24aVD, 2024, all adults.
What these numbers mean
None of them is about one bank, one app or one habit. Together they describe the attention money asks for before any decision gets made: the bills that have to be paid, the plans that have to be kept, and the cushion many people do not have.
Where the burden comes from.
Understanding
64%
of investors show low knowledge of the market they invest in: little familiarity with it, or not recognising that savings earning less than inflation buy less.
SEBI Investor Survey, 2025. Box 5, “India’s Investor Knowledge Quotient”, p. 35.
Complexity
74%
of households that do not invest say complexity or missing information holds them back: not knowing how products work or how to start, conflicting information, or too many options.
No survey collected in 2024 or later asks the same questions in the same way across the countries we researched, so this page does not compare or rank them. Where a recent national figure exists, it is shown for its own country only. Countries with no recent figures are left out.
Financial management burden
India
Time
0.14minutes a dayTime recorded paying household bills and budgetingNational survey, not comparable
MoSPI Time Use Survey, 2024. Computed from the person file: docs/03_RESEARCH/impact-research/derived/tus2024-household-finance-time.json, age_15plus, finance_351_352_B.
Understanding
64%Investors with low knowledge of the securities marketNational survey, not comparable
SEBI Investor Survey, 2025. Box 5, “India’s Investor Knowledge Quotient”, p. 35.
Fragility
70%Adults who could not raise emergency money within 30 days, or only with great difficulty
World Bank Global Findex, 2024. GlobalFindexDatabase2025.csv, fin24aN and fin24aVD, 2024, all adults.
Complexity
74%Non-investors held back by complexity and information gapsNational survey, not comparable
905 millionhours a yearon household finances, 2024
753 millionadultsfinancially fragile, 2024
No source collected in 2024 or later measures money for India, so none is shown.
Where Trove is meant to help: Accounts in one view, Subscriptions surfaced, Spending you can read, Investments in context, Budgets and goals.
Financial management burden
United States
Time
1.8minutes a dayTime spent on financial managementNational survey, not comparable
BLS American Time Use Survey, 2025. BLS Public Data API, series TUU10101AA01048669, annual 2025. Moderate confidence.
Estimated human cost
3.0 billionhours a yearon household finances, 2025
No source collected in 2024 or later measures understanding, fragility, complexity and money for United States, so none is shown.
Where Trove is meant to help: Accounts in one view, Subscriptions surfaced.
A LOOK INSIDE
The interface.
An impression of Trove. The figures are invented for the illustration.
WEDNESDAY, 12 JUNE In control
TOTAL BALANCE₹ 54,208.62+2.5% this month
SpendingThis month
1 Jun12 Jun30 Jun
Next goal
Emergency fund₹ 32,000 of ₹ 50,000
Recent activitySee all
Grocery storeToday− ₹ 798.42
Rent transferYesterday− ₹ 12,000
Coffee club10 Jun− ₹ 245.00
Trove’s response
Built to make money easier to understand.
Trove is made for the problems above. Each capability names the burden it is meant to reduce. We do not claim how much it helps: we have no measured result to show yet.
Accounts in one view
Balances across current accounts, savings and cards, so the total is something you can see rather than assemble.
Meant to reduceTimeFragmentation
Spending you can read
Categorised spending over time, designed to answer where the month actually went instead of listing every transaction back at you.
Meant to reduceUnderstanding
Subscriptions surfaced
Recurring payments gathered in one list, including the ones that renew quietly at a price you no longer remember agreeing to.
Meant to reduceTimeFragility and worry
Budgets and goals
A budget you can keep to and goals that show progress honestly, including when progress has stalled.
Meant to reduceFragility and worry
Investments in context
Holdings sit alongside everything else, because an investment balance means little on its own.
Meant to reduceUnderstandingFragmentation
Money across currencies
Dated conversion, so a transaction from eight months ago keeps the rate it actually happened at rather than today's.
How we build it.
Your data stays yours, and the app earns access to it rather than assuming it.
Manual control is a feature. Automatic categorisation is a suggestion, not a verdict.
History should stay true. Restating the past with today's exchange rate is a quiet form of lying.
How we measured this.
The Vroe evidence method
ProblemWhat is happening in people’s lives?
EvidenceWhat does the most reliable research say?
Resource costWhat does it cost in time, attention and money?
Product responseWhat is the product meant to change?
Measured impactWhat has the product actually changed?Waiting for product data
Why every figure is from 2024 or later
Every figure on this page was collected in 2024 or later and published in 2024 or later. Older studies are left out rather than mixed in, even well-known ones, so the page describes money as people manage it now.
Where no recent source exists, the page shows nothing for it rather than reaching for an older number.
Why countries are not ranked
A ranking is only honest when every country was asked the same question, the same way, by one survey. No survey collected in 2024 or later does that for the countries we researched. The World Bank’s 2024 Global Findex survey, for example, does not publish its financial fragility and worry questions for most high-income economies.
So the page ranks nothing. If a recent comparable survey appears, the ranking is generated from it automatically, with its measure, source and year stated beside it, and India listed first with its true rank.
Why there is no single burden score
A composite index would need every ingredient measured the same way in every country. Among recent sources, none is: time-use surveys record activities differently, and we found no source that measures money lost to fees, missed savings, subscriptions or avoidable interest comparably across countries.
Combining them anyway would turn gaps in the data into a number that only looks precise.
Why the page shows no money figures
We found no recent source measuring money lost to poor financial management that we could verify, so there are none here. Where the page counts time and people, these are costs associated with the problem Trove is designed to help people understand and manage — not savings Trove delivers.
Every calculation
Each figure on this page that is not a published value, the formula behind it, and the inputs it used.
India — Time recorded paying household bills and budgeting, across the populationaverage minutes per person per day × 365 ÷ 60 × populationInputs: value = 0.14Population: 1,077,731,602 (15+, 2024; World Bank Global Findex, GlobalFindexDatabase2025.csv, pop_adult, 2024)Result: 905 million
India — Adults who could not raise emergency money within 30 days, or only with great difficulty(not possible + possible but very difficult) × 100Inputs: notPossible = 0.048162454234269673; veryDifficult = 0.650398290895633Result: 70%
India — Adults who could not raise emergency money within 30 days, or only with great difficulty, across the populationshare ÷ 100 × populationInputs: value = 70%Population: 1,077,731,602 (15+, 2024; World Bank Global Findex, GlobalFindexDatabase2025.csv, pop_adult, 2024)Result: 753 million
India — Adults whose most worrying financial issue is paying monthly expenses or billsfin45d × 100Inputs: share = 0.33722106611648Result: 34%
India — Adults whose most worrying financial issue is paying monthly expenses or bills, across the populationshare ÷ 100 × populationInputs: value = 34%Population: 1,077,731,602 (15+, 2024; World Bank Global Findex, GlobalFindexDatabase2025.csv, pop_adult, 2024)Result: 363 million
United States — Time spent on financial managementhours per day × 60Inputs: hoursPerDay = 0.03Result: 1.8
United States — Time spent on financial management, across the populationaverage minutes per person per day × 365 ÷ 60 × populationInputs: value = 1.8Population: 275,987,833 (15+, 2024; World Bank Global Findex, GlobalFindexDatabase2025.csv, pop_adult, 2024). The ATUS figure is for 2025; the most recent Findex adult population is for 2024.Result: 3.0 billion
What cannot be compared
Time recorded paying household bills and budgetingIndia · MoSPI Time Use Survey, 2024National time-use surveys use different activity codes, diary rules and age coverage, so a time figure is shown for its own country only and is never ranked against another. India’s diary, for example, records an activity sharing a half-hour slot only if it took 10 minutes or more. Short tasks such as a quick bill payment often go unrecorded, so this is a floor.
Time spent by adults who paid bills or budgeted that dayIndia · MoSPI Time Use Survey, 2024National time-use surveys use different activity codes, diary rules and age coverage, so a time figure is shown for its own country only and is never ranked against another. India’s diary, for example, records an activity sharing a half-hour slot only if it took 10 minutes or more.
Adults who recorded paying bills or budgeting on an average dayIndia · MoSPI Time Use Survey, 2024National time-use surveys use different activity codes, diary rules and age coverage, so a time figure is shown for its own country only and is never ranked against another. India’s diary, for example, records an activity sharing a half-hour slot only if it took 10 minutes or more.
Adults who could not raise emergency money within 30 days, or only with great difficultyIndia · World Bank Global Findex, 2024The same question was asked worldwide, but the 2025 database does not publish it for most high-income economies, so it cannot compare the countries on this page.
Adults whose most worrying financial issue is paying monthly expenses or billsIndia · World Bank Global Findex, 2024Not published for most high-income economies in the 2025 database, so it is shown for India only.
Investors with high or moderate knowledge of the securities marketIndia · SEBI Investor Survey, 2025A national survey with no equivalent in the other countries shown. SEBI surveys households and investors about securities market products specifically, not money management as a whole.
Non-investors held back by complexity and information gapsIndia · SEBI Investor Survey, 2025A national survey with no equivalent in the other countries shown. SEBI surveys households and investors about securities market products specifically, not money management as a whole.
Households aware of at least one securities market productIndia · SEBI Investor Survey, 2025A national survey with no equivalent in the other countries shown. SEBI surveys households and investors about securities market products specifically, not money management as a whole.
Households invested in securities market productsIndia · SEBI Investor Survey, 2025A national survey with no equivalent in the other countries shown. SEBI surveys households and investors about securities market products specifically, not money management as a whole.
Investors who make some investment decisions based on finfluencer recommendationsIndia · SEBI Investor Survey, 2025A national survey with no equivalent in the other countries shown. SEBI surveys households and investors about securities market products specifically, not money management as a whole.
Mutual fund folios open across IndiaIndia · AMFI monthly note, 2026An industry count of accounts, not a per-person measure, and not collected the same way elsewhere.
Time spent on financial managementUnited States · BLS American Time Use Survey, 2025National time-use surveys use different activity codes, diary rules and age coverage, so a time figure is shown for its own country only and is never ranked against another. India’s diary, for example, records an activity sharing a half-hour slot only if it took 10 minutes or more. BLS rounds to 0.01 hours, so this figure is only precise to about ±0.3 minutes.
National Statistics Office, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India
Fieldwork
January to December 2024
Coverage
All India
Population
Household members aged 6 and over
Sample
139,487 households; 454,192 people aged 6 and over
Method
A 24-hour diary from 4am to 4am in 30-minute slots, up to three activities per slot, coded to ICATUS 2016. Household financial management is codes 351 (paying household bills) and 352 (budgeting, planning and organising household duties). Computed from the person file by docs/03_RESEARCH/impact-research/scripts/tus2024_household_finance_time.py, using MoSPI’s own definitions and survey weights.
A diary of the previous day. Financial management is ATUS activity code 020901, which includes paying bills. BLS publishes the average to two decimal places of an hour, so 0.03 hours covers anything from about 1.5 to 2.1 minutes.
Last verified
2026-09-13
What Trove has changed
Nothing yet. Trove has no users, so there is no measured impact to report. When there is, it will come from product data, appear here separately from the research above, and show when it was last updated.