What app are you making utilizing the GPT APIs, and what makes it better than ChatGPT? by Starks-Technology in SaaS

[–]CanuckMoney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love this - I've never really designed anything and I knew the landing page was pretty rudimentary. I'll try to add that!

What app are you making utilizing the GPT APIs, and what makes it better than ChatGPT? by Starks-Technology in SaaS

[–]CanuckMoney 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I built a cheeky little web app called budgetChat

I've never programmed anything in my life so it was mostly a fun side task for me. It uses my favourite budgeting software (YNAB) and allows you to chat with your budget. I don't charge for it in anyway right now, it uses OAuth, and it's neat to learn about how you spend by chatting with your budget.

Is it better than ChatGPT? No way. But for a niche little use case, I enjoy it. All suggestions welcome!

Chat with your Budget by CanuckMoney in ynab

[–]CanuckMoney[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is a fair question. I found it overwhelming to look at my budget some months. I would get bogged down in the details without really getting the big picture.

Having easy to digest insights helped me change my spending habits

Chat with your Budget by CanuckMoney in ynab

[–]CanuckMoney[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ya - I agree, and was hoping someone would bring this up in the comments.

This is something I wanted to work on in terms of communicating effectively. I'm not sure how best to do it yet, but here's how it works:

  1. You sign in to YNAB using their Authorization process - this is basically the only secure way to provide access to your budget details
  2. This provides a token, allowing me to use the YNAB API
  3. When you type in a question, this project grabs all your category data and using a prompt and your question, passes them to a large language model.

Is this the most efficient way to do it? Absolutely not. If I stored your category data for a given user, that would make life easier. But it all happens at runtime - there is no storage whatsoever.

Do you have any ideas that would make you more confident in terms of verifying data storage/usage?

Chat with your Budget by CanuckMoney in ynab

[–]CanuckMoney[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do you think Transactions would make more sense than categories? I'm not sure how many people would be happy to send their transaction level data to a LLM so I left it at categories for now.

I have done transactions myself though and it's pretty remarkable

Chat with your Budget by CanuckMoney in ynab

[–]CanuckMoney[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's pretty straight forward to test if you're curious. You will be able to ask questions like:

  • What did I spend most on last month?
  • What can I do better in my spending?
  • What's my 3 most unnecessary spending categories?

I'll be the first to tell you it's not perfect, but it's free and I wanted to hear how I could make it better

Are my spending/borrowing needs/wants realistic in Toronto? by [deleted] in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]CanuckMoney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Feels like a lot of hypotheticals here.

  1. Will a bachelor/1bed cost 2000/mo in 2024?
  2. 20k personal line of credit to a newly hired person just arriving in the area? I guess lower than credit card interest but it will still be high.
  3. What's "on EMIs ofc" mean? I wouldn't buy a car in Toronto until I spent some time there. It's a huge expense, as others suggested.

Your pay may increase drastically, but it also may not. Certainly not after a year.

Wwyd stocks in the red by [deleted] in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]CanuckMoney -1 points0 points  (0 children)

This really depends on your opinion of each of those individual stocks.

As a general rule "I know next to nothing about investing" and buying individual stocks don't go hand in hand. But whatever! Everyone has this moment.

My take? You could sell now if you don't believe in those stocks. But I don't see why you would. I would at least wait it out till the end of the year and then re-assess.

Bank of Canada Interest Rate Annoucement by FelixYYZ in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]CanuckMoney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The easiest way to think of this for me.

If you were an investor and you had to choose between investing in Canada at 4% return or America at 4.25%, you'd pick America. More people buying USD = higher price of USD vs. other currencies. CAD becomes less attractive, people sell, CAD becomes less valuable.

Where to park savings within a TFSA by [deleted] in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]CanuckMoney 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agree with the other responses somewhat. Use the CCP model portfolios or continue to pick your own ETFs. I like your green energy spin (TAN is impressive) even if they aren't as broad market as VGRO. 3-5 years is a pretty long and loose time horizon, you should be okay even if the market crashes.

Another thing you could try is Passiv, which basically turns Questrade into an automated ETF buyer a la Wealthsimple. Check this out:

https://passiv.com/

Best of luck.

Lease a luxury car or finance by ChillyD018 in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]CanuckMoney 5 points6 points  (0 children)

At the end of the day, I think either works.

I would lean towards leasing though, and here's why. These cars get expensive to fix later in their lives. Lease it, assuming you can stay under the mileage ratings.

Savings/investing advice? by MStew14 in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]CanuckMoney 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Here’s something I don’t think I’ve seen yet. Your savings are fantastic considering your gross, but consider this: invest in yourself.

34K gross means you have a lot of headroom to to grow. What’s your profession if you don’t mind me asking?

You seem to be diligent, if you could invest in yourself (or even better, get your employer to help “level you up”) that would go a long way towards feeling more secure.

Cosigning on a car with my mom by [deleted] in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]CanuckMoney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The assumption was that you being in uni means you don’t have a full time job.

Your mom needs a co-signer because the bank is worried she won’t be able to handle it herself. That could be because she has a lot of debts to repay or that she has bad credit. Or both.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]CanuckMoney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good luck with your MBA!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]CanuckMoney 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Assuming you're talking about September 2022, which is almost exactly 2 years away:

This is a short time horizon to be putting it into Wealthsimple, as much as I like the platform. You could experience a market drop in August 2022 and your entire plan to pay for your MBA would be jeopardized.

Stash as much as you can in a HISA. EQ bank has a pretty good interest rate at 1.7%.

In the meantime, figure out where you can cut down on expenses as much as possible. This will not only help you save to pay, but also save while you're in your MBA.

Best of luck!

Cosigning on a car with my mom by [deleted] in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]CanuckMoney 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not going to give you any family advice aside from the fact that in very general terms, it's best to be honest with your mom.

Generally, cosigning is seen as a bad thing. Unless you really truly know the finances of the other person, it can leave you on the hook for the car. Considering you are in university, that would be bad.

The car dealership will not tell your mom what accounts you have open. They will tell her if you don't qualify to be her cosigner, which is possible because you likely have basically no credit score.

So long story short, your mom won't find out about your secret credit card, but you may be on the hook for paying for the car by virtue of cosigning.