Learn how to build a simple, privacy-aware, and developer-friendly workflow to keep your personal finances in check. 🐍
Tracking Personal Finances using Python is a book that teaches software developers how to track their finances using Python. The reader is introduced to concepts such as plaintext accounting, double entry bookkeeping, Beancount, after which they are walked through importing their own financial transactions from their banks into a Beancount-backed ledger.
Have you ever wanted to run a SQL query on your bank transactions? This book will teach you how. ✨
About 8 years ago, I was looking for a privacy/developer-friendly way of tracking my money. The privacy implications of using a third-party app with access to ALL my bank accounts didn't sit well with me.
While searching, I came across the concept of plaintext accounting and have been in love with it ever since!
The main idea involves maintaining double entry bookkeeping records of your financial transactions in plaintext files and using specialized CLI tools to work with this data. The tool I describe in the book is called Beancount. It's written in Python and it lets you interact with your financial ledger, analyze your past financial behavior, show your spending patterns, income sources, liabilities, and more!
I've been using this workflow for close to 8 years now and am super happy so far.
So this book is my attempt at helping more people get into the world of plain text accounting!
I hope you give it a shot! And hit me up if you have any questions! 🤝