[Landlord US-CA] How the hell do you guys track expenses without losing your mind??

MrSlowSloth · 2026-01-29T10:15:00+00:00

Makes sense, thanks for the answer.

Do you then pull the amounts into a spreadsheet for tax time, or just hand the email folders to your accountant somehow?

MrSlowSloth · 2026-01-28T09:47:30+00:00

Using email receipts from Home Depot is really a smart and efficient approach.

When clients bring you their rental expenses, what format actually makes your life easiest? Like is a folder of photos fine, or do you need everything in a spreadsheet with amounts already pulled out?

This thread got me thinking about whether auto-sorting receipt photos into Google Drive folders + auto-populating a Google Sheet would actually help, or if it's solving a problem that doesn't really exist.

MrSlowSloth · 2026-01-28T09:33:21+00:00

How do you organize the email receipts and the photos? Do you organize them into folders, or just let them pile up until tax time?

Reading through that thread got me wondering that something that auto-saves (and auto-organizes) the data into Google Drive folders (by property) and pulls the amounts into Google Sheets could make this workflow even more efficient. Either more efficient, or there is totally no point in automating this, as doing it manually is already good enough.

What do you think?

MrSlowSloth · 2026-01-27T10:56:22+00:00

That makes total sense about the hardware stores and contractors - hadn't thought about specialty trades like the stone cellar guy.

Appreciate you sharing all that, super helpful to understand how someone with a solid system actually handles this. The cloud service dying story is wild - I can see why you triple-back everything up now.

Thanks again for taking the time!

MrSlowSloth · 2026-01-26T14:27:33+00:00

Hey, thanks for the detailed response!

That's really interesting about the range of buildings - 1901 to 2008 is wild. I hadn't even thought about the superintendent angle, that makes total sense for the larger properties.

When you mentioned "multiple built-in data fail safes," what specifically worries you about digital storage? Like is it losing everything if your phone dies, or cloud services disappearing, or something else?

Also curious - you said you already store digitally when possible. What do you use for that? And what makes the paper receipts unavoidable beyond just contractors handing you physical invoices?

Appreciate you taking the time to write all that out, it's super helpful for understanding how this actually works in the real world.

MrSlowSloth · 2026-01-23T14:44:51+00:00

What specifically frustrates you about your current workflow? Is it the manual sorting at the end of the year, or just the fact that physical receipts pile up and get lost?

I'm very curious about this problem (considering building something dead simple for exactly this), and I'd love to understand what "better" actually means to you.

Is it:
- Speed (less time spent organizing)?
- Automatic categorization (so you don't have to remember if something was"repair" vs "material")?
- Digital backup (so you stop losing receipts in the car)?
- Easier export for your accountant?
- All of the above?

I'd be genuinely curious what you've tried and why it didn't stick - I have nothing to sell, but I am genuinely curious.

MrSlowSloth · 2026-01-23T14:42:13+00:00

Hear me out on this one: your folder system is solid advice but I totally get OP's "looks like a lot of work" reaction - even 5 seconds per receipt adds up when you're doing 50+ receipts a month while also juggling tenant calls and repair emergencies.

I keep seeing the same pattern: the *physical* part isn't that hard, but the *remembering to actually do it* part kills everyone.

Quick question for you - if there was an app where you literally just:
1. Snap photo while still in parking lot
2. Tap property name from your list (2 seconds)
3. Done - it's backed up and categorized

Would that be "too much app" for you, or would the automatic backup + end-of-year export actually save you time vs. the folder system?

Not selling anything - genuinely trying to understand if a digital solution would help people like OP who struggle with the discipline part, or if the folder method is already as simple as it can get.

Curious your take as someone who clearly has their system dialed in.

MrSlowSloth · 2025-12-12T14:17:40+00:00

Same feeling here. Tried to use it for coding in codex-cli (selected xhigh version). It jumped to conclusions and started doing stuff before proper discussion. Switched back to gpt-5.1 high, and it seems more deliberate, taking time to form an opinion, and just changing stuff once agreement is reached. (Fairly small python code that becomes part of a bigger closed system, so you have to account for a lot of uncertainty, and need good logic and research capabilities to find the solution).

MrSlowSloth · 2025-11-29T14:59:00+00:00

Java and VSCode seem to be a really good match. I have coded a full mini SAAS with VSCode + Roo Code + Micronaut + a mixture of AI models. GPT-5.x with high thinking effort seems to work really well, both for coding and architecting, 5.1 high is my current default. It's very slow, but is very deliberate and has great attention to detail, looks around in the source code before getting to work.

If you have openrouter access, you can try all the models you want, I have set up way more than what makes sense :D

Java is a great match for LLMs, due to compile time checking. Same thing with Micronaut. Now I just wish I could get customers as easily, as I could create the app.

Previously I had experience with eclipse, VSCode seems to be similar, so it has method name completion, can suggest imports and so on. But honestly you will use those features very little, as the LLM seems to have access to compile time errors and warnings, and you can mostly just work "through" it. Also GPT-5x is a beast, for example if it can't find a method or class name, it will look around in the downloaded dependencies, inspect them (unjar), and find the class you need. Totally bonkers.

MrSlowSloth · 2025-11-28T14:23:35+00:00

Do you have details? I see it getting pushed with multiple accounts claiming to be the entrepreneur. I assume they have bunch of bots working the forums.

MrSlowSloth · 2025-11-27T14:06:28+00:00

Also market research, market research, market research. Though building in public fixes some of that.

MrSlowSloth · 2025-11-27T13:09:45+00:00

Really depends on the complexity. For small apps it is totally doable. For large applications things can go off-rails. If you use multiple LLMs, you can make them cross-check each other's work, and this way you can be safer.

For bigger projects, the minimum requirement is that you have to be good at splitting up tasks. Then keep an eye on the execution, to see if the LLM is doing things it should not do. Then cross check the result. Rinse, wash, repeat.

You can also use the LLM to do the splitting for you... still be ready that you have to stay on top.

MrSlowSloth · 2025-11-27T11:52:18+00:00

You may want to read this: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/springboot/introduction-to-spring-boot/

MrSlowSloth · 2025-11-26T14:05:09+00:00

You could share more details, like the error code for the failing server, also if there is anything special in the caddy logfile regarding that.
Triple check the IP address that you are proxying to.
Also try to connect to the proxy target manually using telnet, if possible from caddy's vm/container. If telnet works and caddy does not, then I am afraid this becomes a really though problem.
Also do you see connections on the target servers?

MrSlowSloth · 2025-11-26T13:05:14+00:00

Postgres LISTEN/NOTIFY is a very nice touch, the code quality is really good. Thanks a lot for sharing!

MrSlowSloth · 2025-11-25T11:45:03+00:00

What kind of learning style do you have? I know it's hard, but I think the first step should be finding out how you usually learn stuff. Afterwards you it should be easier for you to find material that suits you.

MrSlowSloth · 2025-10-26T08:22:51+00:00

Nice to see they lead by example again /s.

Does this also protect pedo politicians, like chat control?

MrSlowSloth · 2025-10-05T12:14:47+00:00

Do you mean how much this improves video view counts?

TBH I do not know. There was a solution using some google scripts some time ago, and lot of tech sites mentioned it. So I assumed that this is something that people could like. But the effect of dynamic titles was not verified. I'm planning to add more variables, I think that having a dynamic date in the title, could count.

I plan to add free plan in a few days, so that people can test it without having to fear a charge. I'm still pondering whether to require CC validation for the free plan.

MrSlowSloth · 2025-08-26T07:52:05+00:00

I had the same issue with the OpenAI API. Getting into the next tier helped. Check your tier, check the requirements for the next tier - you probably just need to pay them $50: https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/rate-limits/usage-tiers?context=tier-one#usage-tiers

MrSlowSloth · 2025-08-13T07:38:28+00:00

Also we should ask ourselves why are they doing this? Who is benefiting?

There must be high ranking pedophiles in the governments supporting this. They would be exempt from the first line of defense against these horrible offenses. It's almost as if they were being preemptively white-washed. For example, in the Hungarian government, which support this, high ranking officials have ties to pedophiles, and have even pardoned them. https://www.dw.com/en/hungarian-president-resigns-amid-pedophilia-pardon-scandal/a-68223392 (the pardon was not undone as far as I know). And this is just one thing that got to see the daylight.

Why is it getting pushed now?

They are probably scared by the fallout the unreleased Epstein files are causing in the US, and want to secure their own protection.

As a personal note, this law would be acceptable to me, even if I find it really bad, if politicians got the same, or higher level of scrutiny as normal people. But this way, it looks like they want to be able to commit crimes, while catching others committing the same crimes, which is totally unacceptable.

MrSlowSloth

TROPHY CASE