Our great sponsors
-
InfluxDB
Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.
Yes it's not for everyone. But in my defense, difficult is subjective. I built this for me because this is easier to me. It's a single line I have to keep in mind. The goal here is to remove the friction on entering the data. It means that it has to be highly available, fast, and easy. Though, I admit even I'm not sure if this project can actually achieve those things (even for me)[1].
This is just a personal experiment that I wanted to share.
I've actually tried the spreadsheet approach for 6 months. I tried to record all transactions I made in that 6 months. What I've observed is that it becomes too slow. Maybe there are clever workarounds but the spreadsheet just feels unfriendly to me. Also, I usually have slow 4g connection (Philippines) and I'm using a phone from 2016[2]. These variables are guranteed to NOT make a frictionless experience.
> I spent a lot of time trying to solve this for myself, and trust me when I tell you.. mkdir for transactions did not cross my mind at all :)
Haha. I've been working on exiftool and was looking for methods to track every transaction I have. I'm not sure what happened.
I don't know how useful this will become but learning awk is a nice side effect.
> How about a 'simple' spreadsheet, with Date, Amount, Currency, Shop/Vendor, and then 2-3 columns with "Necessary/Unnecessary/Junk", "BAU/Vacations/Work", and/or Town (to be able to calculate that your trip to Paris actually cost a total of X (tickets, hotel, drinks, etc).
This approach doesn't scale for me. Sure, tools can handle the data, but can you? I sure can't. When a busy month comes, that's going to be a messy spreadsheet with gaps. Which makes the month-per-month comparisons almost impossible.
[1] as stated in the README: https://github.com/elpachongco/finance-tracker#state-of-this...