
Show HN: Mintable – Roll-your-own Mint clone for managing personal finances - kevinschaich
https://github.com/kevinschaich/mintable
======
chank
How is this not just a copy of this?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18838127](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18838127)

[https://github.com/yyx990803/build-your-own-
mint](https://github.com/yyx990803/build-your-own-mint)

What additional have you added?

~~~
lixtra
At least some semicolons where added. But the author is open about its
heritage:

[https://github.com/kevinschaich/mintable/commits/master/scri...](https://github.com/kevinschaich/mintable/commits/master/scripts/saveEnv.js)

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tribby
What are the core differences between this and evan you's mint clone[1]?

edit: I read to the bottom and saw that this is a fork, but if all it does is
add defaults ("This repo is a lot more opinionated about defaults and gives
you a working transaction spreadsheet out of the box"), why not contribute
those defaults upstream rather than fork?

1\. [https://github.com/yyx990803/build-your-own-
mint](https://github.com/yyx990803/build-your-own-mint)

~~~
kevinschaich
Thanks for the feedback! I updated the README with a detailed comparison which
also hopefully explains why they became incompatible.

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cabraca
if its just for your personal finance i would rather use firefly because it
does not use third party services and is open source.

[https://firefly-iii.org](https://firefly-iii.org)

[https://github.com/firefly-iii/firefly-iii](https://github.com/firefly-
iii/firefly-iii)

~~~
hx2a
Firefly looks like a better choice. The mint clone uses Plaid, a financial
intermediary that has been heavily criticized on this forum.

Firefly uses Spectre. Anyone know of security or privacy issues with using
that?

~~~
JC5
Hi! I've created Firefly III. I want to note that the tool doesn't require you
to use Spectre. It's one of the available ways to kickstart your financial
administration.

Personally, I would always do this by hand.

~~~
hx2a
Cool, thanks for your reply.

What does by hand mean in this case? Entering all of the data myself? Is there
a way to import CSV data of portfolio and transaction information?

~~~
JC5
Yes, by hand. I strongly recommend it if you want to get a feel for your
finances. But yes, there is a CSV import too.

~~~
hx2a
Cool. I will give this a try in the near future.

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mcqueenjordan
Apologies for having to be this person in the room.

I won't be jumping at the opportunity to funnel my PII through something
developed by an employee of Palantir. (Effectively a mass surveillance
company.)

~~~
reustle
It's open source

~~~
morganvachon
"Open source" has absolutely nothing to do with GP's concerns. For an example
why the concern has merit: Chromium is open source, yet it still routes every
single thing you type into the Omnibox through Google's servers, even if you
abandon the search and delete what you typed before pressing "Enter".

~~~
monadgonad
It has everything to do with that, because we can see the source and see
whether it does anything like that, and build it from source ourselves.

~~~
pjmlp
Where is Google Sheets source?

~~~
CrazyPyroLinux
[https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/](https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/)
[edit] Plus
[https://nextcloud.com/collaboraonline/](https://nextcloud.com/collaboraonline/)

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ulucs
Uhh, are there any reasons for the single emoji commit messages?

~~~
kevinschaich
Hey – apologize and thanks for the feedback! I saw this on another repo and
thought it was a cool idea just for the initial release. All the “fire”
commits were just README edits and polish, will be sure to post more helpful
comments moving forward! :)

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elcomet
For those like me who didn't know, mint is a web-based personal financial
management service (mint.com). This is a clone that uses Google sheets as a
backend.

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IloveHN84
How the data tracking here?

Can I avoid to share my core financial data with third party services?

~~~
kevinschaich
Hey! Mintable relies on Plaid for fetching transactional data but you’re free
to plug in whatever Google Sheets alternative you prefer!

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throwaway_12348
This would be perfect if I don't have to sign up for Plaid and give them my
password. I can download CSV's from Bank of America site. Has someone written
a small piece of code to read the CSVs and populate "Mintable"? Scrapers
anybody?

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sbmthakur
Since we are on the topic, I would like to know if we have any alternatives to
Plaid APIs?

~~~
kevinschaich
Hey! Not currently – but please feel free to discuss and contribute here!

[https://github.com/kevinschaich/mintable/issues/2](https://github.com/kevinschaich/mintable/issues/2)

------
uptown
Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18838127](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18838127)

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downrightmike
Anything to handle business finances?

~~~
kevinschaich
Hey! Out of the box there's nothing groundbreaking. I find what works for me
is to include a column to mark individual expenses as "business related", and
then calculate a total at the end of the month that I make sure to get
reimbursed for through expense reports.

At the core though, this is just a spreadsheet, so you can add custom formulas
and analytics to your heart's content!

