Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I got control of my spending with some no-code services and 100 lines of Python

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 70 posts

Re: I got control of my spending with some no-code services and 100 lines of Python

#21

Post by jedberg »

useful wrote: post #20
jedberg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banking in the US is utterly ridiculous. In Europe, if you need to move up to 100,000E in a day, you can do it with a few clicks or taps, and maybe a card reader that they already gave you. In the US, you have to use a wire transfer is you're moving more than about $4,000. And wires cost a lot of money. And they aren't even instant even though they are billed that way. I had to move some money from one account I own…

You can now do an instant ACH transfer of 5000 or less with Chase. Takes about 5 minutes. I do it between Chase and BofA.

Yes, $5,000. In Europe it's 100,000. Big difference.

$5,000 isn't enough to cover rent in San Francisco.

Re: I got control of my spending with some no-code services and 100 lines of Python

#23

Post by jedberg »

easymodex wrote: post #18
jedberg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banking in the US is utterly ridiculous. In Europe, if you need to move up to 100,000E in a day, you can do it with a few clicks or taps, and maybe a card reader that they already gave you. In the US, you have to use a wire transfer is you're moving more than about $4,000. And wires cost a lot of money. And they aren't even instant even though they are billed that way. I had to move some money from one account I own…

I have been in a similar situation and to me it's one of the main reasons why we need cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrencies don't solve this problem, but they do lack the regulations and baggage that cause it.

Re: I got control of my spending with some no-code services and 100 lines of Python

#24

Post by toomuchtodo »

jedberg wrote: post #21
useful wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can now do an instant ACH transfer of 5000 or less with Chase. Takes about 5 minutes. I do it between Chase and BofA.

Yes, $5,000. In Europe it's 100,000. Big difference. $5,000 isn't enough to cover rent in San Francisco.

Very few people in the US live in SF. For everyone else, it works a treat (I have a Chase account just for Zelle/Chase Pay transfers).

Re: I got control of my spending with some no-code services and 100 lines of Python

#25

Post by air7 »

> As an engineer, it is in my DNA to build things. However, it’s too easy to get stuck in the mindset that you have to build everything. This mentality often leads one stuck with a plethora of incomplete products that grew too complex to finish before losing interest.

This. I can relate so much. I feel my instinct is always to roll-my-own because I can and, perhaps more importantly, because I'm not familiar with relevant no-code services.

What other such tools/services are out there that can help "to go from idea to proof-of-concept in only a few hours."?

Re: I got control of my spending with some no-code services and 100 lines of Python

#26

Post by majewsky »

neilv wrote: post #19

For anyone who wants to do things like double-entry accounting with transaction splits (e.g., properly encode an Amazon order for 5 different items from different expense categories, that're paid for by a mix of rewards points, Gift Card balance, and CC), there's GnuCash. You can also do things like record transactions yourself, update with downloaded data, and reconcile against monthly statements (as another way of…

> You can make custom reports with charts. I used these, for example, for comparing how much I spent buying coffee every day, vs. how much I spent on every cost that goes into making coffee at home, when I tried that for a while.

Nice! But why do you need a separate report for that? Just put all the coffee-related expenses into their own subaccount of the expense account for Food, and run the standard expense reports on that account.

> Warning: GnuCash can be a significant investment of time. I eventually decided it was no longer worth it for me, though I might someday resume it.

Oh, I know what you mean. Especially when you first set it up.

For me, it's about 15 minutes per week, all things considered. I track all expenses, including cash expenses. The only thing I don't break down into individual items are grocery bills. Those get folded into one daily "Groceries" transaction.

Re: I got control of my spending with some no-code services and 100 lines of Python

#27

Post by majewsky »

easymodex wrote: post #18
jedberg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banking in the US is utterly ridiculous. In Europe, if you need to move up to 100,000E in a day, you can do it with a few clicks or taps, and maybe a card reader that they already gave you. In the US, you have to use a wire transfer is you're moving more than about $4,000. And wires cost a lot of money. And they aren't even instant even though they are billed that way. I had to move some money from one account I own…

I have been in a similar situation and to me it's one of the main reasons why we need cryptocurrencies.

Not at all. The Single European Payment Area solves these issues without wasting a gargantuan amount of energy.

Re: I got control of my spending with some no-code services and 100 lines of Python

#28

Post by jedberg »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #24
jedberg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, $5,000. In Europe it's 100,000. Big difference. $5,000 isn't enough to cover rent in San Francisco.

Very few people in the US live in SF. For everyone else, it works a treat (I have a Chase account just for Zelle/Chase Pay transfers).

SF rent was just an example. There are many examples of needing to move money in amounts greater than $5,000 but less than $120,000. For example, I can't pay a contractor with Zelle because they almost always need more than $5,000.

Yes, Zelle is a nice stopgap solution, except it is only supported by a few banks, and still has really low sending limits.

Re: I got control of my spending with some no-code services and 100 lines of Python

#29

Post by dopeboy »

I'd like the capabilities of Mint without the creds hand off. BofA has starting doing this in their portal but it's not well done.

I like the "hack" here - seems BofA supports this kind of alert too. I'd love to follow a simple guide that lets me (1) setup the zapier instance and (2) deploy the server side to a DO or Heroku.

Post reply on HN