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Show HN: ExpenseOwl – Simple, self-hosted expense tracker

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Re: Show HN: ExpenseOwl – Simple, self-hosted expense tracker

#81
This reminds me of Kanboard in how focused and simple it is: https://kanboard.org

That's a really good thing, you don't always need heavyweight solutions with bunches of features that love to eat a lot of RAM (and CPU), sometimes a simpler option is fully sufficient.

Especially because this one doesn't try to tackle complex problems like auth, if it's for personal use, you can just put basicauth (over TLS), mTLS, OIDC (Relying Party) or whatever your heart desires in front of it.

Re: Show HN: ExpenseOwl – Simple, self-hosted expense tracker

#82

This reminds me of Kanboard in how focused and simple it is: https://kanboard.org That's a really good thing, you don't always need heavyweight solutions with bunches of features that love to eat a lot of RAM (and CPU), sometimes a simpler option is fully sufficient. Especially because this one doesn't try to tackle complex problems like auth, if it's for personal use, you can just put basicauth (over TLS), mTLS, OID…

thank you! glad you like it!

Re: Show HN: ExpenseOwl – Simple, self-hosted expense tracker

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't find the library right this second but there's a JavaScript library that takes human date descriptions, like "last Friday" and creates a date object. Depending on users' typing speed that might be another convenience factor thing.

These sound great in theory but as an app user I have found their implementation can range from deeply irritating to downright broken. Anti-use cases off the top of my head might be (this was from a calendar/reminder app): - I write myself an appointment on Monday to remind myself to plan a meal for next Friday, so the app silently moves the Monday app to Friday without telling me just because the words "next Friday"…

To be fair, even a massive LLM is not able to handle this properly

https://chatgpt.com/share/67a8ef08-de44-800a-a0e2-b2523035ee...

Re: Show HN: ExpenseOwl – Simple, self-hosted expense tracker

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of future projection are you looking for? My main issue is not all months are the same, sometimes I might spend way more in a given month for a given category (perhaps a one-off purchase like new furniture) that I don't aim to replicate for the next month, so how would the projection work in that case?

You create buffer categories that you slowly fill up over time and use for these one-offs. YNAB calls it "rolling with the punches". Most categories are predictable month to month, and the ones that aren't or are one offs you budget separately for.

Yeah that's essentially what I do, or have a yearly budget for things like furniture rather than a monthly one. I just wish it was more standardized in many apps.

Re: Show HN: ExpenseOwl – Simple, self-hosted expense tracker

#86
post #7

I built my own similar tool for my wife and I, with the same goal of making entering transactions as fast as possible, and one thing I found useful was predictive form filling. Some categories have the same thing logged over and over (like for the "Gas" category I always made the title "Gas") so when you select the "Gas" category it prefills the title field with the most common transaction title for that category. Al…

Wouldn’t importing a credit card statement eliminate the need for manual entries? I don’t use an expense tracking tool - apologies if my question may is missing context.

I did that for a while, but I always spent a lot of time retracing my steps to properly label most transactions. I think I'll try the tool listed here, if it is simple enough to manually enter transactions I can do that every evening and get better data in the end than a monthly review.

Re: Show HN: ExpenseOwl – Simple, self-hosted expense tracker

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t importing a credit card statement eliminate the need for manual entries? I don’t use an expense tracking tool - apologies if my question may is missing context.

I did that for a while, but I always spent a lot of time retracing my steps to properly label most transactions. I think I'll try the tool listed here, if it is simple enough to manually enter transactions I can do that every evening and get better data in the end than a monthly review.

i agree, intention behind this project is - select a category add cost and done! no tags, no wallets, no budgets

Re: Show HN: ExpenseOwl – Simple, self-hosted expense tracker

#88
post #7

I built my own similar tool for my wife and I, with the same goal of making entering transactions as fast as possible, and one thing I found useful was predictive form filling. Some categories have the same thing logged over and over (like for the "Gas" category I always made the title "Gas") so when you select the "Gas" category it prefills the title field with the most common transaction title for that category. Al…

Wouldn’t importing a credit card statement eliminate the need for manual entries? I don’t use an expense tracking tool - apologies if my question may is missing context.

How does one import credit card statements reliably in the USA?

Re: Show HN: ExpenseOwl – Simple, self-hosted expense tracker

#90
post #83
post #15

Not sure if this beats an excel file shared on Google drive?

Entering data into a Google Sheet on mobile is not fun in my opinion.

The approach I took to make entering data in to sheets a little less awful:

1. Setup the google sheet

2. Create a simple AppScript script that accepts Name/Amount/?Date

3. Attach AppScript to the google sheet

4. Set up shortcut through the Apple Shortcuts app to ask for the inputs and create a simple POST to the script URL

So adding an expense is simply clicking the Shortcut icon and entering in the data. No need to open sheets itself

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