Oh YNAB, you presume too much. The idea - brilliant. The app - it insists upon itself. Every other app that costs ~100 $/mo automates, visualizes, and summarizes far better.
Fine! YOU WIN! I do, in fact, need a budget...
This repo uses ChatGPT to auto-categorize transactions, and mark them with a visible blue flag in-app. State between runs is serialized to a local SQLite DB to avoid unnecessary API calls.
Transactions already tagged with categories will not be considered.
Uncategorized transactions will attempt to be matched to Categories that fall in Category-Groups that start with "[Auto]" (case-insensitive).
In the example shown in the image, the categories eligible for auto-categorization are "Entertainment", "Dining", "Shopping", and "Gas".
Transactions that have been auto-categorized are marked with a blue flag.
You'll need to bring your own OpenAI GPT token. At the moment GPT 3.5 is $0.50 / 1M input tokens, and $1.5 / 1M output tokens [pricing page]. For me, each uncategorized transaction uses about ~85 input tokens, and ~2 output tokens. All things considered, very cheap.
YNAB is 99 $/yr, and you don't pay any extra for an API key. You're rate-limited for 200 requests per hour. Each script run uses 3 requests. Meaning you can run this script every minute if you want.
Docker
docker build -t aelzeiny/ynab-gpt .
docker run \
-e OPENAI_API_KEY=$OPENAI_API_KEY \
-e YNAB_API_KEY=$YNAB_API_KEY \
-v ./db.sqlite:/app/db.sqlite \
aelzeiny/ynab-gpt
Crontab, every 5 minutes (absolute paths recommended)
crontab -e
*/1 * * * * docker run -e OPENAI_API_KEY=$OPENAI_API_KEY -e YNAB_API_KEY=$YNAB_API_KEY -v ./db.sqlite:/app/db.sqlite aelzeiny/ynab-gpt > path_to_logs.log
I spent time in YNAB, Copilot, and Monarch and came out with a clear winner for my existing needs. Copilot was a VERY close second.
I tried 3 apps for a few weeks, and here are my opinions.
YNAB-> Best for Budgeting. It’s in the name. But I wish it automated more.Copilot-> Best for visualizations, auto-categorization, recurring expense tracking, dashboards, and overviews. But I wish it was better at budgeting and goals.Monarch-> Most well-rounded. But I wish it did better at auto-categorization & recurring expenses & budgets instead of targets.