Show HN: Lunch Money, a personal budgeting tool with multi-currency support • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Lunch Money, a personal budgeting tool with multi-currency support

#111

Post by jnfr » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 12:28 PM UTC

Improvotter wrote: post #99

jnfr wrote: post #2

Hi Show HN, I'm really excited to share what I have been working on the side since late November last year. I am a one-person team and this project has allowed me to harness and grow from my few years of experience working as a software engineer. I was also able to flex my design muscles a little bit, while learning some marketing along the way. Stack: * Node.js w/ Typescript backend * React + Semantic UI w/ Typescri…

I'm moving soon and could use the multicurrency support. I'm also graduating college so got to do all of this on my own now, I guess I'm your perfect new customer. Compared to all of the other apps, why would I for example choose you? Do you also have some more information on the credit card linking? Do you support debit cards? This is crucial to be honest. And what about UK bank accounts?

Congratulations on graduating college and good luck with the upcoming move! We currently use Plaid to connect to bank accounts which unfortunately only supports US/Canadian banks, so you might be out of luck for now if you were hoping for automatic imports. We are working on more ways beyond Plaid to import your transactions so if you would like, you can sign up for our mailing list to keep updated on our progress and eventually sign up when we can support your bank.

If you would like a budgeting solution that is thoughtfully designed and encourages building good habits rather than setting spending constraints, I would encourage you to give Lunch Money a try. I would also encourage you to give the other apps a whirl, since our methods are all different. I hope you find a budgeting solution that works for you!

Re: Show HN: Lunch Money, a personal budgeting tool with multi-currency support

#112

Post by jnfr » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 12:32 PM UTC

oarsinsync wrote: post #101

pitaj wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any specific reason you decided to use Flutter instead of React native for your mobile app, given you use React for your existing frontend?

I suspect it's down to wanting to learn new tool-sets and skills: > this project has allowed me to harness and grow from my few years of experience working as a software engineer.

Nailed it. I've worked on a React Native app before and honestly, didn't love it. I did my research on Flutter and love the motivation and execution behind it. Also, being able to quickly get to the first prototype and having way less platform-specific code as well as greater and sleeker performance compared to RN was a huge selling point for me. I also figured it wouldn't hurt to learn a new technical skill.

However, I may be way in over my head now at this point to tackle this on my own. If there are any Flutter devs out there interested in helping out, feel free to shoot me an email at jen@lunchbag.dev

Re: Show HN: Lunch Money, a personal budgeting tool with multi-currency support

#113

Post by jnfr » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 12:32 PM UTC

Finkregh wrote: post #63

jnfr wrote: post #2

Hi Show HN, I'm really excited to share what I have been working on the side since late November last year. I am a one-person team and this project has allowed me to harness and grow from my few years of experience working as a software engineer. I was also able to flex my design muscles a little bit, while learning some marketing along the way. Stack: * Node.js w/ Typescript backend * React + Semantic UI w/ Typescri…

Does it work on Linux?

This is a web-based app, so as long as you have a modern browser, yes it works on Linux :)

Re: Show HN: Lunch Money, a personal budgeting tool with multi-currency support

#114

Post by jnfr » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 12:37 PM UTC

pndmnm wrote: post #47

jnfr wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you loud and clear. Allowing manual import of transactions via CSV is very high on our feature list! Using a service like Plaid to automatically import transactions was a great way to attract our first users and validate our product. Going forward, we definitely want to also support more ways of importing transactions.

Great to hear. I signed up to check it out but I'm also of the view that I can't give direct access to online banking credentials to third parties (at least in the US, you're liable for wire transfers that can be initiated from those credentials). A service that distinguished itself in that way would happily have my business.

Thanks for signing up anyway! That'll put you on our mailing list, so you can receive product updates. We'll be working on more ways beyond Plaid to import transactions.

Re: Show HN: Lunch Money, a personal budgeting tool with multi-currency support

#115

Post by jnfr » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 12:40 PM UTC

phodge wrote: post #89

I'm keen to have a look. I've been frustrated with other tools because they're too focused on splitting everything into identical monthly budgets when that's really not how finances work IRL: 1) My driver's license costs $150 to renew once every 5 years - I don't want to split that into 60 monthly allocations of $2.50 and end up having over $100 sitting in my account for an expense that's still not due for over a yea…

Currently our recurring expense feature only supports monthly and yearly expenses. We have thought about expanding this to also support "upcoming expenses" which is what your driver's license cost would fit under.

We have gotten feature requests for custom budgeting periods to align with payment schedules which sounds like it might fit your second use case.

Thanks for sharing your interesting and unique use cases. I hope you find a budgeting solution that works for you, whether that's Lunch Money or a homegrown spreadsheet!

Re: Show HN: Lunch Money, a personal budgeting tool with multi-currency support

#116

Post by jnfr » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 12:43 PM UTC

_def wrote: post #75

This is exactly what I want. Like many others, I have my own personal solution, which I used for the last 3 years. But it's far from "complete" and lacks many convenient features your app provides. Including a wonderful UI. The only thing I wish for is CSV imports because my bank is not supported. It nags on me that essentially my most private data is not in my hands anymore but this is so much more useful, I'm enjoy…

We definitely recognize the aversion of using a service like Plaid, and we are working on more ways beyond that to import your transactions. Thanks for the feedback!

Re: Show HN: Lunch Money, a personal budgeting tool with multi-currency support

#117

Post by mosselman » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 1:03 PM UTC

jnfr wrote: post #49

mosselman wrote: post #39

This looks like what I for my own financials, only more done ;). I like the graphs, although I am confused by the example where you are under budget, but the line is still red.

Perhaps the red I used was a poor colour choice, but it's not red because you're under/over budget. Just needed a contrasting colour to show the two different lines! Feedback noted however, thanks for sharing!

I understand, just wanted to mention it. The app looks great! Good luck with it.

Re: Show HN: Lunch Money, a personal budgeting tool with multi-currency support

#118

Post by fairramone » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 1:30 PM UTC

aresant wrote: post #71

Here's a question - has anybody designed a platform yet that can break down and reconcile Amazon purchases? I've given up on every single household budgeting / tracking solution due to the huge volume of Amazon orders our family places across regular Amazon, Amazon Fresh, Prime Now, etc. As a result I wind up with a budget that looks like "50% Amazon" and then everything else. What I'd really like to know is categori…

I have the same problem. Amazon purchases by family members totally obfuscate how money is spent.

Re: Show HN: Lunch Money, a personal budgeting tool with multi-currency support

#119

Post by isaacaggrey » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

jnfr wrote: post #48

isaacaggrey wrote: post #29

YNAB user here - this looks great and I love new tools :) but what differentiates this from YNAB besides non-envelope budgeting method? also nice - the ability for a partner/spouse to collaborate on the same budget which is also a nice plus Lunch Money has if there is an "last edited" feature and collaboration as a 1st-class thing (YNAB is stubborn on this point)

I would say Lunch Money is totally different from YNAB. We tried to rethink most aspects of budgeting and came up with our own philosophy of how to best approach it. My target audience isn't YNAB'ers since I know most of them are fiercely loyal to the YNAB philosophy, which is totally okay :) To your point about collaboration, we track who did what, but we don't go as far as having a complete edit history. It seems l…

Could you elaborate more on how it is totally different?

I understand your target audience is not YNAB per se, but b/c of that very fierce loyalty you could draw some currently paying customers like myself. :)

I ask this in a genuine way but I'll try to play around with Lunch Money.

From your landing page, these features all exist in YNAB: * being able to review transactions that need to be categorized, splitting transactions * adding projected monthly expenses that haven't been charged yet * warnings for an account not importing correctly * allowing you to choose between what you spent last month vs budgeted last month vs spent on average

What does seem unique is better visualization on anticipation of spending and spending habits, which is definitely nice!

Though I think what you mean is perhaps the "feel" of budgeting vs the exact features. At the end of the day, YNAB just forces you to categorize vs envelope method technically.

Re: Show HN: Lunch Money, a personal budgeting tool with multi-currency support

#120

Post by jnfr » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 3:22 PM UTC

Flimm wrote: post #104

Yes! I am especially interested in multiple currency support. Most budgeting software doesn't provide this well or at all. Some questions: * Is each transaction stored in its currency, or is everything converted to a main currency when stored? The latter is lossy and problematic. * Does the app expect each currency to have a fixed exchange rate? If it does, that's problematic. * You are asked to select a primary curr…

These are really great questions, thanks for asking!

1. Every transaction is stored in its original currency. The conversion to your primary currency happens on demand.

2. We fetch daily currency rates so it should more-or-less accurately reflect the market. We have gotten feature requests for exposing this and allowing manual override of currency rates. If this would be important to you, feel free to let us know and it'll get bumped up on the priority list!

3. You can feel free to change your primary currency at any time and as often as you want in the Settings tab. There is no risk as it will have no permanent effect on your transactions!

4. Bank transactions show up in the currency that the bank account is set to so if you transferred -US$100 to +CA$133 to a CAD bank account, it will show up as two transactions in their respective currencies. However, to your point, in the totals, the currency rate might fluctuate a bit and it might add -US$100 and +CA$133 up with a few cents discrepancy. This could be solvable if we allow manual override of currency rates.

5. When it comes to multi-currency monthly budgeting, we use the currency rate from the first of the month to normalize everything to your primary currency. You can set a budget in any currency. For example, you can budget 10000yen for restaurants, and in your budget summary, you will see US$93 expected spending.

Hope this makes sense and feel free to reach back out with any more questions.