January 29, 2014

Project: Become a miser.

This is about a little method/script that I came up with that lets you analyse your expenses. Be it the day to day expenses or specific expenses such as trips, purchases, etc. Be it you alone or a group of people.

Cost Parser is a simple way of keeping track of expenses. It’s aim is to give you a basic overview of how you have been spending your money.

What does it analyse specifically? #

At the moment, it is very simple. It gives you:

Total amount spent.
Break down by spender.
Break down by category.
Break down by sub category.
Break down by day of the week.

How does it work? #

Step - 1: You pick any editor/note taking application that is easily accessible (preferably across multiple devices). You do this by following the specific format mentioned in the next step. Ideally, you want a device/application that makes copy/pasting easy.

Step - 2: You starting noting down your expenses in the following format:

#dd-mm-yyyy
[cost1] [category1].[sub-category1] [spender1]   
[cost2] [category2].[sub-category2] [spender2]
    ...etc

yyyy is optional.

Example: #

#01-06
393 haircut k
333 household.groceries k
30 travel.bus a
50 lunch.cafe a
800 fuel k

Step - 3: Whenever you want to analyse your spending, go to narak.github.io/CostParser/CostParser.html and paste in everything you have been noting down and you’re done. You should see your expenditure breakdown.

I have an alarm that goes off at 9 PM on weekdays and 10 AM on weekends specifically set to note down the expenses. I use Google Keep for it. Keep is really convenient because it means that I don’t have to type it on the cumbersome phone keyboard if I’m noting down all the expenses for the day at one go. Also copy+paste directly on the computer and not phone.

Why? #

For one, I needed a way to see where was all my money going. >.< It seemed to be mysteriously disappearing into the ether. I needed to find out what was the source of the moolah disappearage and which day would it be generally. Was it the grocery days (wednesday/sunday) or booze days (friday/saturday).

You might ask why did I build this? Why, when there are loads of applications available that let you do the same thing?
Well, I tried. About 2 applications before I got bored. I didn’t explore more, I probably should have. But simply because building something is more fun and you can make it like you imagine an application like this in your head.

Simple enough to do it quickly.
Easily accessible on any platform.
Does not get in the way.

A note taking application of your choice is very simple. You could use Keep/Evernote to sync it across multiple devices. Or drafts in Gmail(or any other email you use). I use a combination of all three.

Since the input source is insignificant to the process (as long as it is text), platform dependence is eliminated.

Um… I don’t know how it doesn’t get in the way. I put it there just because it sounds like something someone from marketing would write.

To Do and future: #

Today when I was using it, I felt the need to drill down on lunch (the category, lulz).
Possibly keep track of histories. I do month on month analysis (since about 4 months now I think). I’d like to see a graph of how, for example groceries/booze expenditure is looking over time. Have I managed to cut down on the booze at all!?
Have a way to analyse and compare against other people. If I could get a 1000 other people to use it, say from Bangalore, I could get statistics about expenditure. Something to let me compare how I’m doing compared to the others about my age or so.
Auto correct: Categories and Sub Categories should get auto corrected to the next most logical thing. At the moment, if I make a typo while typing in the expenses, it creates faux categories. So, for example, if I type ‘froceries’ instead of ‘groceries’ in a hurry… well you get the picture.

So yeah. #

Go forth and use it!

Please.

Kudos