u/Cranius_Maximus_

I turned 29 a few months ago. I looked back on my 20’s and realized I spent too much time worrying. Most of my worries were about things that didn’t matter the week after they happened. I once pulled an all nighter for a programming quiz in an introductory python course that the professor eventually threw out because they forgot to grade it— and I pulled that all nighter because I was afraid to lose my 90% grade in the class.

I spent so much time worrying that I never acted seriously on the things I wanted. Streaming, making YouTube videos. One negative comment was enough to make me question my whole process.

I was so worried about doing a little thing perfectly that I didn’t do the big things. And I hear echoes of worry in this post— that somebody will disagree with me or that I didn’t articulate my point well enough. The fear isn’t gone, I just know that it’s unrealistic— and that the worst thing is “fear itself”, as FDR said.

I came across a quote that encapsulated it perfectly: “Ready isn’t a feeling, it’s a decision.”

We CHOOSE to go forward, to do our best, to not care. The rest of it just sort of blows in naturally afterwards.

That doesn’t make me perfect. That doesn’t mean I won’t make mistakes. That doesn’t mean everyone will respond positively to what I do.

But moving forward beats what I spent my 20’s doing— doing nothing, afraid of what will come. Not caring is a mindset— it’s not a disregard of consequences, just acknowledgment that the consequences may not be as big as we think.

I’ve been holding my breath for 10 years and now I can breathe again. It’s a strange peace. And it’s peace won through experience, not books or podcasts or a keynote speaker.

The trick for me now is to remember it, and to ground myself daily in it.

What’s the biggest headache you have or had while traveling that you wish someone invented a solution for?

Spent the last while reading every VAT thread I could find in the indie/SaaS corners of Reddit. The advice is nearly unanimous and nearly always right: if you sell your own product, use a Merchant of Record. Paddle, Lemon Squeezy, Polar — they become the legal seller, they eat the VAT problem, and it's bundled with a payment rail you already need. Do that. Genuinely.

But there's a case that advice quietly doesn't cover, and I kept seeing people walk into it:

An MoR assumes there is one seller. A marketplace has hundreds.

The moment your vendors are the real sellers and you're only taking a cut, the MoR model stops applying to you. You're on Stripe Connect, and the tax calculation lands back on the platform — per transaction, with a different seller country each time, each with their own registration status. Nobody warns you about this when you start, because most tax content is written for the single-seller case.

The actual shape of the problem, if you're about to hit it:

• The rate depends on where the buyer is, where that particular seller is, and whether the buyer is a business
• B2B cross-border in the EU usually means reverse charge — you charge nothing but must say so on the invoice, with the right wording
• US is state-level and product-type dependent (digital vs standard are different rates in a lot of states — a fair few tax digital goods at 0% while standard goods are 6–7%)
• Same-country transactions inside the EU behave completely differently from cross-border ones

So I built a small API that answers exactly that: send seller country, buyer country, optional VAT ID, get back whether to charge, the rate, and an invoice line with the rule it's based on. EU + UK, US state level, Canada, Australia.

Honest disclosure since I'm linking it: it's a paid thing, $49 one-time for the full source under MIT — you run it on your own Cloudflare Worker, so it costs you a Worker invocation rather than a percentage of every sale. Docs and the whole spec are readable without paying: https://checkout-tax-api.pages.dev/

Equally honest about the limits, because I'd want to know:

• VAT IDs are format-checked, not verified live against VIES. If you need real validation, hit VIES.
• It tells you the rate and the rule. It does not file anything for you.
• It's new. It has 75 tests and I fixed two genuinely wrong answers in it this week (a DC rate that was stale, and weekend holiday substitution that was going the wrong direction for UK/CA/AU). I'd rather say that than pretend it sprang out perfect.
• Not tax advice. Check with whoever does your books before you rely on it for filing.

Mostly posting because the marketplace-vs-MoR distinction took me a while to see clearly and I haven't seen it written down anywhere plainly. If you're building a two-sided marketplace and planning to "just use Paddle later" — worth knowing now rather than at your first cross-border sale.

Happy to answer Connect tax questions in the comments whether or not you buy anything.

---

Edit, to clear up a fair objection: someone pointed out this API was posted here ~12 hours ago described as free, and now I'm quoting $49. Both are true and I should have said so up front — that's on me for not checking our own post history before writing this.

To be unambiguous:

• The hosted API is free to use. No key, no signup, no limit I'm enforcing today: https://checkout-tax-api.pages.dev/ — hit /rate and /decide and you're done. If that's all you need, take it and ignore the rest of this post.
• The $49 is the source, if you'd rather not depend on someone else's endpoint for something that touches your invoices. MIT, deploy to your own Worker, no key, nothing phoning home. Buying it gets you independence from me, not access.

Two posts about the same thing in one sub reads like spam even when it isn't, so: apologies for the noise, and the useful half of this post is the marketplace-vs-MoR distinction above, not the product.

When you traveled, did you assess or make comparisons to food you have back home? Are there dishes that you now prepare for yourself, based on where you went?

Do you eat differently or have a different perspective on food?

**TL;DR: I built an app that handles the whole food problem for me. Planning it, shopping for it, tracking it, remembering to actually eat it. I need people who aren't me to tell me if it's useful.**

Hi all. I've been building this for a while and it's finally at the point where other people should be poking at it.

It's called Bread & Butler (B&B). Food has been a lifelong struggle for me. I'm the stereotypical skinny, out of shape nerd. Planning it, shopping for it, tracking it, and honestly even eating it. I have genuinely had food sitting ready in the microwave and forgotten about it. I built this to make myself eat properly and eat regularly, and to take some of the pain out of the whole thing. The "Butler" half is the point: it's supposed to do the boring parts for you.

**Problems I'm trying to solve:**

\- **"What do I even have at home?"** B&B keeps track of what's in your cupboards. Goes down as you cook, back up when you shop.

\- **"What should I be eating to hit my goal?"** Daily calorie and protein targets worked out from your stats and what you're aiming for.

\- **Meal planning being a chore.** B&B builds your week around what's already in your cupboards and what you actually like eating.

\- **Writing the shopping list by hand.** Your plan becomes a list in the sizes things actually come in. Take it to the shop, or open your store's site from the list and add things as you go. Proper one-tap cart building isn't switched on yet, and that's the next thing I want to finish.

\- **Dietary Restrictions. Preferences, Budget, Allergies:** B&B plans around your budget, your store, your allergies, and the stuff you just won't eat. Check labels yourself though. It works off AI and food databases and both get things wrong.

\- **"I don't know what to eat"** There's an "ejection seat" button that looks at what you've got in and tells you what you can make right now, and how.

\- **Forgetting to eat.** It can put your meals on your Google or iPhone calendar, which is the only thing that reliably gets me to eat on time.

\- **Not seeing your own patterns.** You can ask it how your week actually went, what you ate and what you spent, and it'll tell you where you're drifting from what you said you wanted.

It runs in any browser, which is the easiest way to try it. No invite needed, just sign up. There's an iPhone build on TestFlight too, so comment or DM me and I'll send you an invite. Nothing for Android yet.

It's free while it's in beta. The AI parts have a daily limit because each one costs me real money and I'm running this on a deliberately small budget.

What I actually want to find out: can someone who isn't me plan, shop and eat off this for two weeks straight without giving up? Where does it fall apart? Is it even useful to anyone else?

Fair warning that it's a beta, so expect rough edges, and please tell me about them.

Test link in the comments.

Happy to answer anything in the comments.

TL;DR: I built an app that handles the whole food problem for me. Planning it, shopping for it, tracking it, remembering to actually eat it. I need people who aren't me to tell me if it's useful.

Hi all. I've been building this for a while and it's finally at the point where other people should be poking at it.

It's called Bread & Butler (B&B). Food has been a lifelong struggle for me. I'm the stereotypical skinny, out of shape nerd. Planning it, shopping for it, tracking it, and honestly even eating it. I have genuinely had food sitting ready in the microwave and forgotten about it. I built this to make myself eat properly and eat regularly, and to take some of the pain out of the whole thing. The "Butler" half is the point: it's supposed to do the boring parts for you.

Problems I'm trying to solve:

- "What do I even have at home?" B&B keeps track of what's in your cupboards. Goes down as you cook, back up when you shop.

- "What should I be eating to hit my goal?" Daily calorie and protein targets worked out from your stats and what you're aiming for.

- Meal planning being a chore. B&B builds your week around what's already in your cupboards and what you actually like eating.

- Writing the shopping list by hand. Your plan becomes a list in the sizes things actually come in. Take it to the shop, or open your store's site from the list and add things as you go. Proper one-tap cart building isn't switched on yet, and that's the next thing I want to finish.

- Dietary Restrictions. Preferences, Budget, Allergies: B&B plans around your budget, your store, your allergies, and the stuff you just won't eat. Check labels yourself though. It works off AI and food databases and both get things wrong.

- "I don't know what to eat" There's an "ejection seat" button that looks at what you've got in and tells you what you can make right now, and how.

- Forgetting to eat. It can put your meals on your Google or iPhone calendar, which is the only thing that reliably gets me to eat on time.

- Not seeing your own patterns. You can ask it how your week actually went, what you ate and what you spent, and it'll tell you where you're drifting from what you said you wanted.

It runs in any browser, which is the easiest way to try it. No invite needed, just sign up. There's an iPhone build on TestFlight too, so comment or DM me and I'll send you an invite. Nothing for Android yet.

It's free while it's in beta. The AI parts have a daily limit because each one costs me real money and I'm running this on a deliberately small budget.

What I actually want to find out: can someone who isn't me plan, shop and eat off this for two weeks straight without giving up? Where does it fall apart? Is it even useful to anyone else?

Fair warning that it's a beta, so expect rough edges, and please tell me about them.

Test link in the comments.

Happy to answer anything in the comments.

TL;DR: I built an app that handles the whole food problem for me. Planning it, shopping for it, tracking it, remembering to actually eat it. I need people who aren't me to tell me if it's useful.

Hi all. I've been building this for a while and it's finally at the point where other people should be poking at it.

It's called Bread & Butler (B&B). Food has been a lifelong struggle for me. I'm the stereotypical skinny, out of shape nerd. Planning it, shopping for it, tracking it, and honestly even eating it. I have genuinely had food sitting ready in the microwave and forgotten about it. I built this to make myself eat properly and eat regularly, and to take some of the pain out of the whole thing. The "Butler" half is the point: it's supposed to do the boring parts for you.

Problems I'm trying to solve:

- "What do I even have at home?" B&B keeps track of what's in your cupboards. Goes down as you cook, back up when you shop.

- "What should I be eating to hit my goal?" Daily calorie and protein targets worked out from your stats and what you're aiming for.

- Meal planning being a chore. B&B builds your week around what's already in your cupboards and what you actually like eating.

- Writing the shopping list by hand. Your plan becomes a list in the sizes things actually come in. Take it to the shop, or open your store's site from the list and add things as you go. Proper one-tap cart building isn't switched on yet, and that's the next thing I want to finish.

- Dietary Restrictions. Preferences, Budget, Allergies: B&B plans around your budget, your store, your allergies, and the stuff you just won't eat. Check labels yourself though. It works off AI and food databases and both get things wrong.

- "I don't know what to eat" There's an "ejection seat" button that looks at what you've got in and tells you what you can make right now, and how.

- Forgetting to eat. It can put your meals on your Google or iPhone calendar, which is the only thing that reliably gets me to eat on time.

- Not seeing your own patterns. You can ask it how your week actually went, what you ate and what you spent, and it'll tell you where you're drifting from what you said you wanted.

It runs in any browser, which is the easiest way to try it. No invite needed, just sign up. There's an iPhone build on TestFlight too, so comment or DM me and I'll send you an invite. Nothing for Android yet.

It's free while it's in beta. The AI parts have a daily limit because each one costs me real money and I'm running this on a deliberately small budget.

What I actually want to find out: can someone who isn't me plan, shop and eat off this for two weeks straight without giving up? Where does it fall apart? Is it even useful to anyone else?

Fair warning that it's a beta, so expect rough edges, and please tell me about them.

Test link in the comments.

Happy to answer anything in the comments.

Edit: original post removed by Reddit due to links, not trying to spam the sub.