PlainBudget – Minimalist Plain Text Budgeting
4 comments
·May 9, 2025hx8
jgalvez
Thank you so much for the feedback — this is a very early iteration.
I've been using it for several years and wanted to get it into an app. I've been getting a lot of suggestions and requests from early adopters. I will definitely take yours into consideration. There's a lot of room for improvements.
Re: GUI limitation, there's a CLI which is open source and free:
https://github.com/galvez/plainbudget
The parser and processor have a comprehensive test suite.
npm i pbudget -g
I talk about the DSL design and its capabilities in detail here:
k2enemy
I'm sure you're aware of the plaintext accounting/budgeting options, but for others that might be interested, here's a list: https://plaintextaccounting.org/#pta-apps
I personally use hledger, but beancount is also popular.
dave333
I guess it's obvious that a plain spreadsheet does this job nicely. I use one row per day and one column for each account, e.g. rent, utilities, each credit card, savings accts etc. I make a new tab each year. Very easy to see in advance the low point in your bank balance each month/pay period.
I love budgeting and I love plaintext, doing more with textfiles than most people. I'm going to give some quick feedback as someone that should be in the target audience, but doesn't find this particular application interesting.
* Setting the budget is one thing, but you never actually spend exactly the budget. There is no way import transactions which is crucial. It's a good habit to compare actual expenditures to projected budgets.
* One of the major problems that successful budgeters run across is how to track savings over time. Savings are shifting in nature. In bank accounts or bonds the interest the occur is predetermined. What if the savings is in stock, crypto, precious metals or collectables? It's a shame that my tool for tracking the value of my retro game collection doesn't communicate with my tool for tracking my savings accounts.
* I'm concerned about using your GUI tool to edit a text file instead of my own primary text editor. The nice thing about my text editor is that my font is set how I like, my keybindings are set how I like, and I know a ton of useful shortcuts. I'm not sure I'd want to spend the time to configure your tool, and even if they have the configuration options I'd want.
* Honestly there are a ton of budgeting apps with more features. Some good ones are even free.