budget

This script is a work in progress. The motivation for it is that I was trying to track finances through Google Sheets, and then through some JSON processed by python.

A lot of this led to imparting unnecessary structure, so I rethought the problem and decided that all I really needed was spending categories, names and values. Anything else is either pleasant, or just a distraction.

So...this tool manages finances with a directory structure similar to below:

.
├── archive
│  ├── carpets.txt
│  ├── coffee-table.txt
│  ├── dishwasher.txt
│  ├── ebooks-2016.txt
│  ├── ebooks-2017.txt
│  ├── ebooks-2018.txt
│  ├── ebooks-2019.txt
│  ├── ...
│  ├── ...
│  └── ...
├── monthly
│  ├── broadband.txt
│  ├── council-tax.txt
│  ├── energy.txt
│  ├── food.txt
│  ├── ...
│  ├── ...
│  └── ...
├── oneoff
│  └── ring2-doorbell.txt
└── yearly
    ├── dropbox.txt
    ├── insurance.txt
    ├── pinboard.txt
    └── ...
    └── ...

Here, monthly, yearly, and oneoff are categories. There is nothing special about them--the tool will simply aggregate costs within each directory. archive is special, in that a directory with the name archive is by-default hidden, with a command line flag to show it.

Each finance entry has only 2 required fields: name and cost. For example, yearly/dropbox.txt:

name: dropbox
cost: 96
frequency: yearly

Here, only name and cost are read. frequency is just a personal key, such that if the txt file is read without the script, you can put in more helpful information. A more representative example may be a note of archive/nintendo-switch-games-2018, where you have an absolute total, but within it you maintain a list of games bought (for the sake of looking back).

The name and cost can be displayed alongside the aggregate output by providing the -v flag.

By default, it looks for an env var $BUDGETDIR. If this is not defined, you must pass a directory as the first argument. If both exist, the passed directory is preferred.

Example output of budget -v

monthly  ~ £449
    150 -- food
    80 -- energy
    80 -- council tax
    30 -- water
    30 -- factor
    27 -- broadband
    20 -- boiler cover
    9 -- spotify
    9 -- netflix
    9 -- amazon prime
    5 -- twitch critical role
oneoff   ~ £180
    180 -- ring2 doorbell
yearly   ~ £417
    157 -- TV license
    155 -- insurance
    96 -- dropbox
    9 -- pinboard

Example output of budget -a

monthly  ~ £449
oneoff   ~ £180
yearly   ~ £417
archive  ~ £9999