BudgetFlow

Productivity

budget planning

SHOW HN2024

275points
95comments
#243of 3,515 in 2024
Top 7%of 2024 by points

How HN took it

DebatedReal support and real criticism

13 positive, 17 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 14 critical, out of 45 comments about the project. Thread score -0.04.

Idea: 6 for, 6 againstDesign: 5 for, 2 againstExecution: 0 for, 3 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 1 againstPerformance: 0 for, 2 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Sankey view is intuitive and clear for budgets

    From 3 comments
    • Thanks for sharing this. I've never seen Sankey diagrams used for budgeting, but it feels very intuitive! I'm wondering about how budgeting tools like this help with planning vs…
      thomascountz on HN
    • I love this idea! I was vaguely thinking of making something like this for myself but I’m very glad someone else has done the hard work. Getting started now!
      jonplackett on HN
    • Very pretty! One thing I noticed is that when you hover over a budget item, it highlights the source and the destination of that item, but only a distance of one away. I think it…
      phailhaus on HN
  • Helped a user build a personal budget for the first time

    From 1 comment
    • This is so cool! I actually spent the last 3 hours after finding this creating a personal budget for the first time in my life. Basically I just added all my expenses using…
      opdahl on HN

Objections

  • Main account node adds little; income and outgoings are enough

    From 1 comment
    • I'm not sure the diagram helps in any way, certainly in the use case on the main page. The "main account" is just thrown in to provide some sort of intermediate step. In most…
      b800h on HN
  • Cannot model per-account or percentage-based flows like child support or tax withholding

    From 3 comments
    • One of the things that irks me with many of the /r/dataisbeautiful things with Sankey diagrams is somewhere on the line there's "one big bucket" that loses all of the data behind…
      shagie on HN
    • A dollar in an account is fungible. Are all the dollars that show up on the W2 going to the same account? Do some of them not even hit the main account? If I made $3000 this…
      shagie on HN
    • I really like the idea. Having a bird's eye view of money flow is central to building and maintaining a strategy. I have been looking for this kind of tool for years, and…
      lcof on HN
  • UX is hard to use, unclear how to edit numbers and add pockets

    From 2 comments
    • I really like the idea. Having a bird's eye view of money flow is central to building and maintaining a strategy. I have been looking for this kind of tool for years, and…
      lcof on HN
    • This looked like an awesome product... until I signed up, then it made no sense using it. UX is nonsense. Hope it improves though so thumbs up
      mfh423 on HN
  • Lagging animations and Safari loading issues

    From 2 comments
    • Looks very nice, but animations are very laggy for me (M1 Mac, Chrome Beta)
      parsadotsh on HN
    • Strange, chart doesn't load in Safari 15.6, no error message in console.
      fouc on HN

Requests

  • Automatic import of bank transaction data

    From 1 comment
    • Nice use of Sankey. Here's an ask or thought, I would like to feed this automatically with my spend data from my bank account. So I can export a csv that has time-date, entity,…
      monkeydust on HN
  • Show how balances change over time

    From 2 comments
    • Is there a way to see how the money changes over time or do I need to work that out myself. Like if a bucket is filling up month by month?
      jonplackett on HN
    • This is a neat view into budgeting. What are your future plans? Will you have tools that help see how the different pockets grow over time?
      techplex on HN
  • Self-hosted version

    From 1 comment
  • Highlight full upstream and downstream paths on hover

    From 1 comment
    • Very pretty! One thing I noticed is that when you hover over a budget item, it highlights the source and the destination of that item, but only a distance of one away. I think it…
      phailhaus on HN

Questions

  • Where is data stored and who operates it

    From 1 comment
    • Where does the data get stored? Why is there no company / legal entity / contact information on the home page? It's an interesting idea, but if you want budget information about…
      calrain on HN
  • Does it support planning what-if scenarios

    From 1 comment
    • Thanks for sharing this. I've never seen Sankey diagrams used for budgeting, but it feels very intuitive! I'm wondering about how budgeting tools like this help with planning vs…
      thomascountz on HN

Alternatives named

  • Monarch

    From 1 comment
    • Sounds like you would benefit from Monarch. I use their Sankey features for visualizing expenses (https://www.monarchmoney.com/features/spending)
      davidstoker on HN
  • YNAB

    From 2 comments
    • I've been using YNAB for the last ten years or so and I've found the best way of dealing with these sorts of cases is to exclude that money from "the budget" altogether…
      cbhl on HN
    • Fungibility != allocatability Money itself is fungible, else you'd be marking every single dollar bill specifically with some unique mark. But still, I'm curious what you mean by…
      satvikpendem on HN
  • Google Charts Sankey

    From 1 comment
    • Wanted to drop a note that I have been using Sankey for the exact same use case for a couple years now. I use Google Charts and about 40 lines of JS code, then I export the SVG…
      mtam on HN
  • Conquest.money

    From 1 comment
    • I’ve been working on a personal finance app for the last few months that’s in beta now that’s doing something similar. It’s essentially a personal finance app plugged with Plaid,…
      ishyfishyy on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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