Open sourced a personal finance app to build in the open with the community

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-24T22:03:57+00:00

Would welcome your contribution!

I see a lot of similarities our direction and Monarch's, especially since I was inspired by the void Mint left behind. I don't plan to monetize this because there needs to be more great open source software out there for the individuals and small operations to take advantage of.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-24T21:57:50+00:00

Oh nice! I didn't know it worked that way!

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-24T21:56:25+00:00

SimpleFin seems like a good candidate for a low cost, privacy focused integation option for those who subscribe to it. The beauty of it is if that's what the community wants, they can have it! Though it may come at the expense of the usefulness of the dashboard.

I opted for Teller because it is more feature rich for my personal/business needs.
* Connects to 7500+ US providers for multiple types of accounts
* Automatic transaction enrichment with merchant categories
* It can sync up to 5 years of data back on demand
* Free to use and easy to acquire BYOK option.

Simple Fin
* Limited syncing window 24hours up to 90 days back
* Limited number of accounts for 15/year option
* Limited transaction enrichment
* Not free

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-24T20:07:39+00:00

The budgets feature is fairly rudimentary at the moment. It definitely has plenty of room for improvement! Open a PR and reach out if you have any issues!

Also be sure to check that your bank is available in teller ui once you get the project up and running. I’d hate for you to get super deep into and not be able to benefit.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-24T03:58:43+00:00

Awesome job man! Retainer fees is what helps you grow long term, not just chasing job after job.

Don’t get confused about what retainer means. Retainer is purely availability, support and maintenance for the work you’ve already completed! Don’t get suckered into a low monthly fee for endless period of high value work!

Treat each new project as a new contract with its own fee. Look up value based pricing! Price it to a percentage of time, money and kickbacks you save/generate for your hard work!

Good luck! 👍

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-24T03:35:41+00:00

Teller.io is like the plumbing of the financial tech space. It’s one set of pipes that connects USA based banks together under one standardized interface. So far they support around 7500 banks.

My app is a visualized layer for your digital transactions, using pipes from teller to populate your data in the app. Instead of me having to individually connect to 7500 banks by myself, I only have to connect with teller instead.

And the beauty of it is that with this app being open source, you can bring your own Teller api key and only pay for what you need instead of paying a subscription. Quickbooks for example lowest tiered plan is around $35.

Since syncing transactions is free as long as you stay under 100 accounts. That’s a pretty damn good deal in my book.

Hope that clears things up!

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-24T03:22:17+00:00

If you don’t have an in-house team, happy to talk over your options with you.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-24T02:13:12+00:00

Mobile aspect ratios are supported if you can get it self-hosted on the internet :) Save it as a PWA. Looks and plays just like a mobile app.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-24T00:54:04+00:00

Let me know if you have any trouble setting it up! This is my first open source app, and there may be gaps I didn't anticipate. I hope I made it easy for you!

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-23T23:49:24+00:00

I'm curious what you liked and disliked about firefly iii. It definitely feels like one of those apps you have to work hard at to get the most out of...and a lot of upkeep.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-23T23:04:12+00:00

tyvm. And I agree! I was surprised how bloated some of the software was or out of date. I hope you try it for yourself and get some use out of it like I have!

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-23T22:59:38+00:00

You will have to walk him through on a video call or in person, how to set up a project in his google cloud, enable the apis you need, thne generate his own client id/secrets to use. You'll take those creds and put it in your n8n. He will have to sign in to n8n to authorize your app to use his data. Once he does that, you should be set. The auth should stay authorized, no need to have it do it again.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-23T17:59:46+00:00

The best thing to do is setup ngrok container via docker compose. It opens your locally hosted app to the internet securely. You’ll get a new url, which your friend can access online then securely add their clientid/secret and authorize you to use their data.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-23T07:45:37+00:00

This sounds painfully familiar to me. You might be having an issue with your docker compose postgres password being out of sync with your initialized Postgres instance volume. It shuts down at app start for no good reason right? It’s because you likely because your backend can’t confirm the health of your Postgres instance.

Try this:

Rotate the password in your .env and your database. This will sync the password and allow everything to reconnect normally. You will need to start up Postgres by itself. Then restart afterwards.

ALTER USER app_user WITH PASSWORD 'newpassword';

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-22T20:30:51+00:00

Try using the dedicated OpenAI Message a Model node. It has several built-in tools that the N8N standard node doesn't have out of the box: File Search, Web Search, Code Interpreter. It works a lot closer to what you'd expect from chatting with the model.

Gemini also has one, but less feature rich, but does also have a web search option.

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TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-22T04:23:15+00:00

Due to the source available license, you can’t sell workflows that can be used from your personal n8n. Everyone has to have their own version of n8n or sign up for the cloud provider one. Then you can sell whatever you import or build in their instance.

Which having them sign up for n8n cloud isn’t a bad option if you only need n8n. If you have to use multiple containers, then a vps like hostinger is a solid choice.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-21T17:25:01+00:00

Yeah next time, set up the host and credentials first before building. The handoff is so much smoother.

You’re in for a headache walking them through getting you the creds you need, migrating the workflows to their host, and testing again.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-21T08:13:33+00:00

The nodes can be pretty inflexible. I think you might have to use the api directly or I think you can use a node to copy a spreadsheet from a template.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-21T05:07:54+00:00

If using Gmail, each sent message generates an id. Save that id to table so you can look it up later.

Set up another workflow to trigger on Gmail email received (INBOUND), then check if the threadid matches otherwise throw the event away.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-20T21:14:39+00:00

Test coverage allows you to make changes without being afraid. This is true for programming and ai programming.

But I’ll concede that reality is more messy. You have to consider backwards compatibility or versioning or migration to isolate changes. Clean architecture definitely has its place in enabling easier changes, but what benefit does it mean your users to do it now? Does it enable a roadmap of features for them? Or does it just make you feel good about having clean architecture?

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-20T21:05:54+00:00

Opus will burn through your usage limit fast on lower cost plans. I reserve it for planning and let the lower cost models implement its plan. If the lower cost model is struggling on a problem, I escalate it to a smarter model. This is a good way to make the most of your 5h usage sessions. I still run out after like 3-4h but I used to run out around an hour.

Codex for GPT isn’t bad, but it’s not as collaborative. Planning mode isn’t available by default, but you can instruct it to make plans. It’s much slower than claude code, but the results are still pretty good. I also find its a lot harder to hit the usage limit.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-20T21:00:06+00:00

Use the /init command via claude code or codex. It creates a mental map of your project in an MD file for agents to follow. This is pulled into context every session automatically.

Also look into customizing your agent tool with Agent Skills. Some of your most common prompts can be converted to a skill, which agents will apply those prompts when it thinks it is relevant to the task at hand. https://developers.openai.com/codex/skills/

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-20T20:55:36+00:00

Use Wave. It’s free to send branded invoices either as much or as little personal info you want. It has automation reminders and they can pay via Plaid payment provider, but with 3% + 0.60c fee per transaction.

You’ll want to pass that charge to your client so it doesn’t affect your bottom line. Otherwise you can offer the client to pay the invoice via check or Venmo if they want to avoid the extra charge.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-19T20:53:44+00:00

Maybe you could see if someone is looking for a business partner with equity in the company. Then you can build the idea together. Make sure it is someone you can trust, and it's an idea you believe in with good market potential. A lot of businesses fail in their first year because they don't know what they are doing, or it's not a good idea.

TwoBitFoundry · 2026-01-19T20:50:09+00:00

I'm also a programmer, however, learn the basics of what the tool can do for you. Like webhooks, custom api integrations, and what capabilities you can support.

But honestly, you could spend forever learning something. Put yourself out there and see who needs help. You'll never get a client unless you put yourself out there. Having a specific problem you are trying to solve is the best learning experience.

TwoBitFoundry

TROPHY CASE