The Accidental Project
From T3 Stack Training to a Real Tool
This whole thing started as a simple T3 Stack training project. At least, that was the plan. But, like any good coding adventure, things quickly spiraled.
While I was working on it, I thought, “Why not make this production-ready? And hey, let’s make it free for everyone while we’re at it!” It all began when I tried to calculate my recurring monthly expenses. I figured there had to be a tool out there for this, right? Wrong. After searching around and finding nothing that fit my needs, I did what any self-respecting financially savvy person would do: I made a complex spreadsheet.
Naturally, the next logical step was to turn that spreadsheet into an actual app. Because when in doubt, always make things harder for yourself, right?
Here’s the plan:
- What goes in: a bunch of text based expenses
- A few pie charts: so that hopefully you can say stuff like “Oh wow! I spend $100 monthly on XYZ Category, let's cut this down”
Here’s what I needed (and consequently, what I am building):
- Simple UI (because who has time for overly complicated dashboards?)
- No linking bank accounts (because I don’t want to be tracked by anyone)
- No extra fluff (I’m talking to you, unnecessary features)
- Free to use (because expenses are enough trouble without paying for the calculator)
- Organise stuff in Categories (because I life is supposed to be organised)
- Multi-currency support (because why should my pounds and euros be kept apart?)
- Crypto-currency support (because I’m a crypto-nerd)
And that’s how this little training project snowballed into a full-blown, tool set to become a production-ready tool.