Stories

Show HN: KernelCash – Privacy First Budgeting

Article news.ycombinator.com

Show HN: KernelCash – Privacy First Budgeting

Hi everyone! I typically do not put my projects out for others to see, so this is new to me, but I have created a privacy first budgeting app called KernelCash Budgets ( https://kernelcash.com ), and wanted to share it here in the event someone was interested in a product like this. This app has really helped my wife and I, as well as some family, friends, and colleagues, so I wanted to put this out to see if it could help anyone else.

I created this app as a replacement to some of the other budgeting apps out there. Some of KernelCash's core features include:

- Envelope and zero style budgeting - Expense, income, and savings goal tracking - Full analytics for income, expenses, and savings - Bank connection / sync free. We use transaction file imports (OFX / QFX) or manual entry to keep things private. You can freely share or not share what you choose. - Multi-collaborator workspaces. These are great for sharing your budget with a spouse, roommates, and have even been used by some parents to teach their kids how to budget. Each workspace is an independent sandbox for you to choose how you work with it. - Customizable budgets that are not month-locked. You control the time span of each budget you have. - There is only one pricing tier so you will always get every feature.

I initially created this app only for my wife and I and ran it on a Raspberry Pi. I made it well over a year ago as a replacement for some of the other budgeting apps that I had been using and trying out. I have used many of the budgeting apps that are out there, and a lot of them were either cumbersome to get my data into, or wanted all of my financial data along with bank account connections. Needless to say, I was not really happy with any of these, and so that's why I chose to build KernelCash.

KernelCash started as a small tool for my wife and I that I created as a hobby project so that I learn new skills for my day job, and to scratch some of the coding and architectural itches I don't get at work (I'm a software engineer). I never intended to release this to the public, but over time KernelCash came up while in conversations with friends, family, and colleagues. Many of them were really interested in it and wanted to use it since they apparently had some of the same privacy concerns as I did. Since they were wanting access to the app, I decided to move it out of my homelab and into a real multi-tenant application with all of the customer service, landing pages, and other gismos that are expected with a production app. As expected, that was more work than the core app logic.

We are priced lower than essentially all of the alternatives at $9.99/month or $87.50 for the annual subscription.

If I had the financial means to, I would give this away for free. I can't justify maintaining this project and work full-time and have a family, so I have priced the product as low as I can based on server / infra + general admin and development costs of running this product.

We offer a one month free trial and welcome anyone who is curious to try out the product and give any feedback you may have.

Feel free to ask any questions, I would love to answer them!

You can find KernelCash at https://kernelcash.com

Edit: Fixed URL.

Discussion 1 comments · 4 points · LoftyHobbitMan · 14h
Open on HN
Loading the discussion…

Domain filters

Stories from these domains are hidden from every list. Subdomains match too: blocking substack.com also hides danluu.substack.com. Type a domain, or paste a link to block its site, and press Enter.

New collection

Delete this collection?

About YAVCHN

YAVCHN is a reader for Hacker News and Lobsters, with articles and discussions in separate windows or Classic pages.

Created by Paul Parks and built with PUDL.

YAVCHN source code on GitHub

Privacy policy · Terms of use

Help

Keyboard

j / k
Move down and up the story list. The arrow keys scroll whatever has focus.
Enter
Read the marked story in the article reader.
[ / ]
Read the story above or below in the list, in the same article reader. Back returns to the story you came from.
p
Pin or unpin the marked story, which keeps it in Pinned.
n / N
Move to the next or previous top-level comment in the window in front.
c
Collapse or expand that comment.
f
Hide or show the story list.
Esc
Close a menu or this help.
Access key m
Go to the menu bar. Most browsers take it with Alt on Windows and Linux, and Safari with Control and Option.
?
Show this help.

Windows

Each story opens in a window holding its article above its discussion; drag the bar between them to share the room differently. A window can be moved by its title bar, resized from any edge, snapped to a half or a corner by dragging it there, maximised, or minimised to the bar at the foot of the page. Use Window > New reader window to open an empty reader, or Story > Open in new reader window to open another reader for the current article. Docked readers keep their articles when you select another story from the sidebar. Minimized readers can be restored and reused for their site. A window's Previous and Next buttons read up and down the list in the same window.

A link in a comment or an article to another Hacker News or Lobsters thread opens that thread in a window too. A link to a single HN comment opens the comment above its replies.

While a story's window is in front, the Story and Discussion menus in the menu bar hold its commands: pinning, Previous and Next story, sorting, collapsing every thread, jumping to the first new comment. Each window also remembers where you were in its article and discussion, so a reload, or Back to a story that Next took you past, finds your place again. Closing a window forgets it.

The whole arrangement lives in the address, so a bookmark or a shared link brings it back, and Back undoes the last change. Moving between Hacker News, Lobsters, their lists, Pinned and Find changes only the list, and leaves the windows open.

The list

The pin at the start of a row keeps the story in Pinned, and the cross at its end hides it. Pinned can be narrowed by words in the title, site or author, by source, and to the stories you haven't opened yet, and ordered by when you pinned them, by points or by comments; the filters are part of the address, so a filtered view can be bookmarked. Scroll past the end of the list to load more. Domain filters, in the View menu, hide every story from a site.

Collections are named lists of stories. Story > Add to collection files the story in front into one or more of them, and the Collections feed shows them all or one at a time; the menu that chooses collections also creates, renames, and deletes them. A note is your own text on a story. Choose Add note in a story's toolbar to write one; it saves as you type. Rows with a note carry the note mark, and the Notes feed lists every noted story and searches the text of your notes.

Browsing view

View > Windowed and View > Classic select the browsing view and save your default in this browser. Window view reuses a reader for each feed. Classic view opens stories and applets as pages. Open as a page is a one-off action that does not change your saved default. Use the Windowed selector to return an article to a window. Direct page links always open as pages.

Applets

The Applets menu in the menu bar holds three tools, each a window of its own. Replies to me takes your Hacker News user name and lists the replies to your last thirty comments and stories, checking again every three minutes while it is open, and marking what is new since you last marked them read. Look up a user opens a profile on Hacker News or Lobsters, with their submissions and recent comments, as a commenter's name in any discussion does; the bar at the top of a profile looks up someone else in the same window, and Back returns to the one before. Who is hiring? filters the posts of HN's monthly hiring threads by the words you type.

They read only what the sites publish to everyone, so none of them asks for a login, and your user name stays in this browser anonymously and is included in retained applet state when signed in.

Find

Find takes any link and lists every time it was submitted to Hacker News and Lobsters, so you can read each discussion of it.

About

YAVCHN never sees your Hacker News or Lobsters login. The discussion is fetched from each site's public API; to vote or reply, follow the link above the discussion, or the arrow beside a comment, to the source's own site. Without a YAVCHN account, your data stays in this browser. When signed in, pins, collections, notes, blocked domains, and retained reading state are stored with your account and synchronized across devices. Hidden stories and layout stay in this browser. The privacy policy has the details.

Open source: github.com/paulmooreparks/yavchn. Built with PUDL.