How do startup apps gain users without a budget? (I will not promote)

I am the "marketing manager" of an app me and my friends are building, but I'm not performing very well - the question is: how do you market apps? (It's a budgeting app for the EU market, we are collecting people for the waitlist, but its going really bad) Launching it very soon (\~5-6 months), but without users, it would be a waste of time What I tried: posting in subreddits (banned from 2), we are doing social media (avg 100 views) I don't want to hear that I should quit, I'm looking for genuine help.