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If you are using Google sheets to store your budget, checkout https://byobudget.com https://byobudget.com It lets you record purchases in your spreadsheet via

If you are using Google sheets to store your budget, checkout https://byobudget.com https://byobudget.com It lets you record purchases in your spreadsheet via SMS. I should be launching it in the next month or so. It's geared towards people who want just a little more realtime ability for their current budget without switching what they use. If all goes well, I'll be expanding to other integrations (private firefly III instances, YNAB, alternative input methods, etc). Disclaimer: I'm the author. Second disclaimer: Idea shamelessly stolen from a comment on here months ago about what one person does for themself. Also, I'd be interested in finding a couple of beta testers. Edit: Aslo, I'm sorry that it looks atrocious on mobile. Should load pretty quick though ...

crescentfresh 8y ago
This is Awesome!! Is the first word after the price the category, the latter description? Can you quote multi-word categories or something, if you had those? Eg "Store Credit"?
- swsieber 8y ago
  I have to fiddle with it, but I'm planning on multi word categories. I'm not sure how ios handles intentional newlines. I might just change it to "category amount description" instead of "amount category description" to remove any questions of how to parse things. Edit: Yeah, category then description. Quotes are definitely another option. I realized I got caught up and just ignored part of your post while replying...
  - quickthrower2 8y ago
    just normalize all whitespace i.e. s/\s+/ /g then try to match one word, two words etc.. until you hit a category name.
cryptozeus 8y ago
great idea, joined the list
2bitencryption 8y ago
this is neat! I was just thinking about something like this. question for you... my credit card (Chase) lets me receive SMS/email immediately from them upon any purchase using the card, including the amount and the vendor. It's a very trivial and consistent text format, it would be super easy to parse. Could your service learn this format and automatically populate the sheets from these messages? Maybe each user can have a dedicated secret email they can target (username+some_super_long_key@byobudget.com) and they can configure their personal email to auto-forward those emails to your service? Then, unlike with mint, which syncs occasionally, you would have always-up-to-date information, right from the source of truth.
- swsieber 8y ago
  That's a great idea! That definitely falls within the purview of my site. I'd like to add it at some point.
MetalGuru 8y ago
Pretty cool. I built the exact same thing for myself using Twilio and Google sheets. Should’ve realized other people would like it too!

crescentfresh 8y ago

This is Awesome!! Is the first word after the price the category, the latter description? Can you quote multi-word categories or something, if you had those? Eg "Store Credit"?

swsieber 8y ago
I have to fiddle with it, but I'm planning on multi word categories. I'm not sure how ios handles intentional newlines. I might just change it to "category amount description" instead of "amount category description" to remove any questions of how to parse things. Edit: Yeah, category then description. Quotes are definitely another option. I realized I got caught up and just ignored part of your post while replying...
- quickthrower2 8y ago
  just normalize all whitespace i.e. s/\s+/ /g then try to match one word, two words etc.. until you hit a category name.

cryptozeus 8y ago

great idea, joined the list

2bitencryption 8y ago

this is neat! I was just thinking about something like this. question for you... my credit card (Chase) lets me receive SMS/email immediately from them upon any purchase using the card, including the amount and the vendor. It's a very trivial and consistent text format, it would be super easy to parse. Could your service learn this format and automatically populate the sheets from these messages? Maybe each user can have a dedicated secret email they can target (username+some_super_long_key@byobudget.com) and they can configure their personal email to auto-forward those emails to your service? Then, unlike with mint, which syncs occasionally, you would have always-up-to-date information, right from the source of truth.

swsieber 8y ago
That's a great idea! That definitely falls within the purview of my site. I'd like to add it at some point.

MetalGuru 8y ago

Pretty cool. I built the exact same thing for myself using Twilio and Google sheets. Should’ve realized other people would like it too!