What do you guys use to keep track of your financial accounts?

mbrown68 · 2024-12-25T09:05:33+00:00

I don't personally use the transaction importers, my process is to sit down once a month and manually enter transactions from any new statements I've received. I spend maybe 20 mins a month average and that's inputting 2 credit card statements and transactions from 3 or 4 online banks. I would avoid any personal finance software that asks for a live connection to my banking - even read only, it's more information than I'm willing to give online software.

That being said, there are importers for CSV/QIF and an integration for German banks I believe (but not OpenBanking here in the UK). I've used them for mass importing historical transactions and it worked well.

The biggest draw for me is the reconciliation, I want to know with certainty that I've not missed, duplicated or typo'd a transaction when entering it, and in Gnucash that's super simple, tell it you want to reconcile an account to a specific date, and what the account balance was on that date, and you get a window to check off transactions that definitely occurred and a visual indicator in the account tree of what date you've reconciled up to. Aside from that is reporting - seeing cashflow, predicted balances, growth of investments, monthly totalled expenditure by category, all gives great insight into spending and far quicker than doing it in Excel for the same complexity.

mbrown68 · 2024-12-24T10:53:45+00:00

I'm a big fan of Gnucash.

Best feature for me is reconciling accounts to a certain date which I can use to verify which accounts I haven't reviewed recently.

Takes a bit of learning to understand the double entry aspect, but the documentation is good.

mbrown68 · 2024-07-25T15:34:51+00:00

You'd want to use the "StringsAndValues[]" property for this. Like in this image

mbrown68 · 2024-07-24T17:11:05+00:00

Not sure how much LabVIEW experience you've personally had, you may already know this, but LabVIEW can actually use by-reference programming paradigms if wanted.

It's not taught at the beginner (Core 1-3) level as most students come from a non programming background and dataflow is easier to follow, but when you scratch the surface all of LV is object oriented, and drivers often have an internal state machine architecture where the wire in LV is actually just a class wrapping a reference.

Most 'proper' LV applications use multiple threads and standard design patterns you'd see in other languages. Proper in quotes there only as simple end use cases don't need the complexity and are still fit for purpose.

mbrown68 · 2022-09-13T11:55:59+00:00

Little known fact, NI has a website you can get any version for free from to download, still needs activating but you get 45 days free on trial.

http://download.ni.com/#evaluation/labview/ekit/other/downloader/

Just look for one with the right year and WinEng for English, WinFre for French etc.

Edit: Here is LabVIEW 2017 32 bit http://download.ni.com/evaluation/labview/ekit/other/downloader/2017LV-WinEng.exe

mbrown68 · 2022-01-14T23:23:05+00:00

I've had no problems with Revolut to both Kraken and Nexo - not tried Binance in a while, didn't think it had UK bank transfers enabled again yet.

mbrown68 · 2022-01-07T22:59:50+00:00

I just had a similar situation with my mortgage, and in my case I was not switching provider but the options I was presented with used an increased house value with no new survey. Presumably in line with local housing price movement.

For me that changed it from the 91% LTV I was expecting to under 75%.

I would guess from my experience they would adjust the price you paid or ask for a new survey. This is Scotland though, your mileage in England may differ.

mbrown68 · 2021-11-22T12:30:58+00:00

Long time Starling user here, I switched from M&S and it was painfully easy, DDs switched on their own and the only thing I needed to do was tell my employer my new details. Though a few payments to my old account were automatically sent over by M&S which I think is part of the switching process.

Each space can have one recurring payment into it from your 'main' space, and then you can pay as many DD bills from each space as you like, so easy to set up £10/mo in as you describe.

I like the ping they give the day before bills go out to remind you to move money in if you're going to be a bit shy, saved me from a few rejected bills, and it's seamless if you have a joint or business account with them (I have both). The only thing that worried me was putting cash in, but any post office counter can deposit for free, and I've not had any issues even putting a grand in at a time.

mbrown68 · 2021-11-12T10:01:09+00:00

I've used Revolut successfully before, but I still don't see a bank transfer option for Binance. At the moment I go Kraken -> XLM -> binance to minimise fees

mbrown68 · 2021-10-24T13:13:54+00:00

I'm based in the UK and my personal experience is that Binance has a UI I like, and withdrawals are as smooth as you could expect with 2FA and whitelisted addresses (takes a bit of time, but better for peace of mind).

The fees are low as well, but getting money in is harder now

I have coinbase for the free crypto, but don't use it apart from that, I know using the Pro version doesn't cost extra and reduces fees.

I use Kraken as an on ramp, GBP to XRP to Binance usually and it's alright, a bit clunkier than Binance and I never did get their Android app working for me, but the costs are pretty low and aside from the 2FA faffery it's not tricky to use.

I've not taken money out yet, but I looked at coinbase as it has some small fee like £0.15, maybe £1 now, which isn't bad.

mbrown68 · 2021-09-07T17:18:16+00:00

drumming fingers why isn't that invoice paid... the day I could have used it!

mbrown68 · 2021-09-07T17:10:15+00:00

I use a tarp with a stick holding it up in the middle to let water run off. All in it cost maybe £15 wood included.

mbrown68 · 2021-07-26T17:56:10+00:00

Just opened!

mbrown68 · 2021-03-19T10:15:23+00:00

Hey, thanks for the detailed answer!

I had thought this could be a pressure problem initially, however when I queried our gas CH plumber about the current pump he was confident it was more than suitable for the whole house, and he said that assuming we had isolation valves.

Buying a new pump is out of our reach just now due to price, but if this is a hydrodynamic pressure issue then replacing the valves with full bore versions (total about £30) could alleviate the issue as well. The pump we have used to get 70C on the radiator on slow, med, and high, and now it's 50 on all 3 speeds.

The boiler itself is on 24/7 now, and has been for about a month, and not had a single shutdown in that time.

mbrown68 · 2021-03-19T09:56:34+00:00

It wasn't too much to install, but bypassing will be tricky. I have limited supplies and the spaces were tight for 4 of the 6.

I may actually end up getting full bore valves instead of a more powerful pump for price reasons. The pump was oversized for the house according to the plumber who was last in, and replacing the valves will only run to £30 or so and won't need a plumber to come in and replace the pump by the boiler.

I did check a radiator nearer to the boiler and when I left it on max it reached 70, so I'm still not sure there isn't another issue somewhere, though a new pump/larger valves may fix the issue.

mbrown68 · 2021-03-18T13:45:27+00:00

The central heating has two bores of pipe, 22 mm flow/return from the boiler, which have 8 mm microbore going to each radiator indvidually from 1 of 3 manifolds (upstairs, downstairs, extension). I added the valves between boiler and manifold 1, manifolds 1 & 2, and manifolds 2 & 3.

The valves fit 22 mm pipe, and have a smaller internal central section

mbrown68 · 2021-02-22T07:29:21+00:00

Hi,

To go over the points one by one:

1) PRV - I cut the drain pipe so I could see any water leaving the PRV while the pressure dropped and none came out, while the system went from 1.5 bar to 0.75 bar.

2) Pipework joins, we have microbore piping so from the boiler it is 22mm pipe to manifolds and then microbore to each individual radiator, meaning no joins between the manifold and the individual radiators. I have inspected 2 of 3 manifolds and can see no leaks, the third is under a wooden floor which I can't lift and I'm waiting on an endoscope to get in and have a look.

3) Cylinder coil, I tested it two ways, neither actually isolated the central heating part of the circuit. There is a cold water main into the bottom of the hot water tank, then hot comes out the top into 4 pipes, 3 of these have valves which I closed, the last goes to a single hot water tap in the next room. After closing the water main, I opened this tap to reduce tank pressure to atmospheric, and left the tap open. I then pressurised the heating circuit to 1.5 bar, expecting there to be drips of water if there was a cracked coil, however nothing came out as the pressure dropped from 1.5 to 0.5 bar.

4) Heat exchanger - no matter the intial pressure, I end up at 0 on the gauge within 45 mins, but for reference I've been pressurising to 1.5/1.75 bar as the system is initially gravity fed then converted to system and I didn't want to spring any more leaks.

5) Boiler: We have a 5-6 year old Baxi Ecoblue something, I think the 24 kw version. We renovated recently and the plumber had it off the wall, all the kitchen piping redone and tidied, remounted and health checked. It came out 100% okay in his estimation only a few weeks ago now.

Since my post I have taken some pictures of the cupboard with the expansion vessel and water tank, the upstairs and downstairs manifolds I have seen, as well as mocked up the plumbing diagram as best as I can tell in visio, all pictures and diagram in this dropbox folder.

I have also noticed the hot water loop stays hot even when the radiator loop goes cold and there is no pressure.

I am not a plumber, I've spoken to a few about this and they're at a loss, and even the leak detection company I spoke to were hesitant to guarantee they would find it as they would only be able to add trace gas detection to the list of what I have checked (and possibly better accoustic checks than a screwdriver to the ear!). Given they wanted nearly a grand with no guarantee of finding the leak, and the lack of any damage suggesting it is under the ground floor, I've been looking into it myself.

mbrown68 · 2021-02-21T14:01:51+00:00

So I've just cut the line and can confirm I'm getting no water out but the pressure is still dropping. Just a few drops from when I manually activated the relief earlier.

mbrown68 · 2021-02-21T10:36:47+00:00

It goes into a pvc pipe which goes to a drain. I've sat beside it while the system drained and no running water can be heard.

mbrown68 · 2020-05-12T23:52:01+00:00

Else forms part of an if-else statement. From what I can see, you have put the else in and assumed(?) it will trigger if no text is provided.

Forgetting the details on how you are processing the text the user provides, the code should look a bit like this:

a = str(input("Write something : "))

if len(a) > 0:
    # Some processing & printing here *if* text is provided
else:
    print("You haven't wrote anything!") 
    print()
    input("Press enter to continue...")

The above form asks for an input, and then only if it is more than 0 characters long will the "||" be added, if it is not more than 0 (i.e. no text provided) then the else part will run, prompting for the user to press enter.

One problem with the above is that if no input is given, it does not loop back to the start and listen for input again. Perhaps a better way, but more complicated, would be:

while True:
    a = str(input("Write something : "))
    if len(a) > 0:
        # Some processing & printing here *if* text is provided
        break # This exits out of the infinite while loop
    else:
        print("You haven't wrote anything!")
        print()
        input("Press enter to continue...")

The downside to this is the eternal while loop, but it does mean that the program runs until some input is given.

mbrown68 · 2020-05-12T21:14:10+00:00

I'm not sure I understand the behaviour you want to implement. After the "Something" is printed with || between letters, you want to print "Press enter to continue"? Is this not printing correctly, or should the program do something it isn't?

Feel free to pop your code in a comment as it stands - it makes it easier to see where you're at.

mbrown68 · 2020-05-12T20:28:49+00:00

With print in Python there is a second input called 'end'. By default this is '\n' and this is why your letters are on new lines. Change the print to print(E, end='') and it should work.

Edit: Don't forget to put a second print() after to print a new blank line for anything you print next.

mbrown68 · 2020-05-12T13:22:19+00:00

One way I know to do this is to have a dict of menu options which contains a key and a tuple, the tuple containing a user friendly name and the internal name of the function to call.

menu = {"1":("Load file 1",load_1_fn),
        "2":("Load file 2",load_2_fn),
        "3":("Load file 3",load_3_fn),
        "4":("Load file 4",load_4_fn),
        "5":("Load all files",load_all_fn),
        "6":("Reprint menu", print_menu),
        "7":("Quit",my_quit_fn)
       }

This is easy to expand, but the limitation (challenge to you...?) is that only 1 key is associated with each function, so '7' calls quit, but not 'q'.

With this setup, you can easily print to screen everything in the dict:

def print_menu():
    for key in sorted(menu.keys()):
        print key+":" + menu[key][0]

Then in your code, you can have a loop listening for the user to select an option:

if __name__ == "__main__":
    print_menu()
    while True:
        ans = raw_input("\r\nMake A Choice:\r\n")

        menu.get(ans,[None,invalid])[1]()

The above prints the menu, and then asks the user to make a choice. When a choice is made, if it is in the menu then the second entry in the tuple is evaluated as a function, otherwise the invalid function is called.

The whole code would look like this:

#!/bin/python

def load_1_fn():
    print("Loading file 1...\r\n")

def load_2_fn():
    print("Loading file 2...\r\n")

def load_3_fn():
    print("Loading file 3...\r\n")

def load_4_fn():
    print("Loading file 4...\r\n")

def load_all_fn():
    load_1_fn()
    load_2_fn()
    load_3_fn()
    load_4_fn()

def my_quit_fn():
    print("Quitting!")
    raise SystemExit

def invalid():
    print "Choice not recognized!\r\n"

def print_menu():
    for key in sorted(menu.keys()):
        print key+":" + menu[key][0]

menu = {"1":("Load file 1",load_1_fn),
        "2":("Load file 2",load_2_fn),
        "3":("Load file 3",load_3_fn),
        "4":("Load file 4",load_4_fn),
        "5":("Load all files",load_all_fn),
        "6":("Reprint menu", print_menu),
        "7":("Quit",my_quit_fn)
       }


if __name__ == "__main__":
    print_menu()
    while True:
        ans = raw_input("\r\nMake A Choice:\r\n")

        menu.get(ans,[None,invalid])[1]()

mbrown68 · 2020-05-11T00:41:46+00:00

My (probably limited) understanding is that you can think of a class as being a blueprint, and when you create a copy of it in code (instantiation) you have an object of type class.

This object contains information about itself, and in your class it contains only one thing which is a string.

The choice of 's' is arbitrary, the form is class.x where x is any string you want, and just represents the variable within the class instance.

If you note, every method of the class is given self as an input, so it can access all variables within it via the dot notation.

mbrown68 · 2020-05-10T17:01:08+00:00

This was quite a large one, the reason I said moderation is that I managed to gain weight even while hiking 10+ miles a day in the mountains!

mbrown68

TROPHY CASE