Show HN: Pennywize-Conversational budgeting for freelancers with variable income

2 pointsposted 5 hours ago
by croustibat

1 Comments

croustibat

5 hours ago

Hey HN,

I'm a freelance developer and I've always struggled with budgeting apps. They assume fixed monthly income, require endless form-filling, and I'd quit after 2 weeks every time.

So I built Pennywize: you describe your financial situation in natural language, and AI structures your budget automatically.

Example: "I make €4,500/month but it varies. Rent is €1,200, I want to save €500" → "You have ~€87/day discretionary budget"

Tech stack: - Laravel 12 (TALL stack: Tailwind, Alpine, Livewire) - Claude API, OpenAI or Mistral for natural language processing - PostgreSQL - Hosted in EU (GDPR compliant)

The CSV import auto-detects bank formats (tested with major French and European banks). No bank credentials needed — you export your own data.

Currently in beta/waitlist. Would love technical feedback on the approach.

Source isn't open yet, but happy to discuss architecture decisions.