Personal Finance | Bas Nijholt

tiller-streamlit 💰

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Tracking personal finances is crucial, especially when working towards financial independence (see my WenFIRE post on Day 4). Today’s project is tiller-streamlit, a Streamlit app that visualizes your financial data from Tiller. I host it on my local network under money.local using Traefik for easy access.

📖 Origin Story #

Used to use Intuit Mint, but when they shut down, I needed an alternative with full data control.
Tiller automatically populates your financial data into a Google Sheet that you own forever.
With 20+ accounts, manual updates are tedious – Tiller automates it.
Combined Tiller’s data with Streamlit’s ease of use, creating a personal finance dashboard.

🔧 Technical Highlights #

Powered by Streamlit: Turns Python into a web app with minimal code.
Tiller Integration: Connects to Tiller’s Google Sheets for automated data retrieval.
Interactive Visualizations: Uses Plotly and Altair for dynamic charts.
Customizable Analysis: Filter by categories, time periods, and more.
Net Worth Tracking: Calculates and visualizes net worth over time.
Dockerized Deployment: Easy deployment with Docker, and served locally with Traefik.

📊 Impact #

Primarily for personal use, it has significantly improved my understanding of my finances.
Great way to learn Streamlit and explore its capabilities.
Visualizing spending patterns helps identify areas to cut back and make informed financial decisions on the path to financial independence.

🎯 Challenges and Solutions #

Learning Streamlit: Excellent documentation and community support made it a smooth process.
Data Wrangling: Transforming Tiller’s raw data into a format suitable for visualization.
Deployment: Docker and Traefik simplified local deployment, making it accessible on my home network.

💡 Lessons Learned #

Data Ownership Matters: Owning your financial data gives you control and flexibility.
Visualization is Key: Seeing your finances visually makes a huge difference.
Streamlit is Powerful: Simplifies web app development.
Automation is Essential: Tiller’s automatic data population makes the whole process sustainable.
Docker and Traefik Simplify Local Deployment: Making it easy to access the app on my home network.

🔮 Future Plans #

Budgeting Features: Integrate budget tracking and forecasting.
Goal Setting: Set financial goals and track progress.
Investment Tracking: Incorporate investment data for a complete picture.

Want to visualize your own finances with Tiller and Streamlit? Check out tiller-streamlit on GitHub!

#OpenSource #Python #Streamlit #PersonalFinance #DataVisualization #Tiller #Traefik #Docker

WenFire: When Could I retire?! 🔥

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

(See my intro post)

While I absolutely love my job, I believe I’ll love it even more when my family’s livelihood doesn’t depend on it. That’s the dream of financial independence - doing what you love because you want to, not because you have to. This led me to create WenFire, a financial independence calculator that helps answer the eternal questions: “When can I retire?” and “How many days of extra work will that new iPhone or car cost me?”

📖 Origin Story #

There are many retirement calculators out there, but they all made assumptions I didn’t quite agree with (and I’m sure others won’t agree with my assumptions either!). I wanted something that matched my specific views on salary growth and investment returns. Plus, I had been itching to learn more about building web applications, so this project let me explore FastAPI, htmx, and Vega-Lite while solving a personal need.

🔧 Technical Highlights #

Built with FastAPI and Bootstrap
Interactive visualizations using Vega-Lite
Responsive and mobile-friendly design
Customizable assumptions for:
- Investment growth
- Inflation rates
- Salary increases
- Safe withdrawal rates
Allows parameter changes at certain dates
Calculate retirement impact of one-time expenses
All parameters are encoded in the URL for easy sharing

📊 Impact #

While this project only has 3 GitHub stars, its real value is personal - it helps me track my own journey to financial independence. It’s also been a great learning experience in web development, an area where I had little prior experience.

🎯 Challenges and Solutions #

Learning web development from scratch
Creating intuitive visualizations for financial data
Balancing simplicity with customization options
Making reasonable default assumptions
Ensuring mobile responsiveness

💡 Lessons Learned #

Financial modeling requires careful consideration of assumptions
Web development is a different beast from scientific computing
Sometimes the best way to learn new tech is to solve a personal problem
The best calculator is the one that matches your own assumptions

Want to calculate your path to financial independence? Try it at wenfire.nijho.lt or check out the source code!

#OpenSource #Python #FinancialIndependence #WebDev #FIRE

Tiller Streamlit

Thu, 08 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000