u/JarodGabriel

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Hey all, first time really putting this out there, aside from a comment last week.

I've been building a zero based budgeting app called ReadyCents, and I've finally hit a point where I don't want to keep it to myself anymore. I've been heads down on this for a good while now.

The reason I started it is pretty simple. I've been self employed for about 3 years, and between YNAB's price creeping up and me juggling a bunch of separate tools for spending, savings, and taxes, though none of it really fit how I actually live. So I just started building the thing I wished existed.

The part I'm most proud of is that tax tracking is built right in. If you're self employed, or you work a W2 and pick up side income, it helps you set money aside as you earn instead of scrambling every April or every quarter. It's built around real paycheck rhythms too, so whether you get paid monthly, biweekly, or it's all over the place like mine, it works.

Here's some of what it does:

Taxes baked in. You set a percentage to hold back (say 25%), tag your deductible expenses, and it shows your estimated taxable income plus a quarterly view as the year goes. You can export a CSV at the end of the year. (To be clear, it helps you set aside and estimate. It's not doing your filing or telling you your final tax bill.)

Real zero based budgeting. Every dollar gets a job. You can budget at the category group level and also break things into subcategories, so you can fund a whole group and then split it across categories after a transaction actually lands. You can even set a credit card up as a checking account and it still behaves like a credit card on the budget side.

Rollover that actually makes sense. If you overspend a category/s, that overspending rolls forward too, so nothing just quietly disappears. Even the notes you write for a month can carry over to the next one.

A calendar so you can see what's landing and when, like bills, paychecks, and your projected cash flow. You can also add a transaction right from any day.

Reports for spending by category, income vs expenses, and net worth over time.

A debt payoff coach that tracks your debt and tells you the next best move in plain English instead of just showing you a scary number.

A few things I honestly haven't seen other budgeting apps talk about:

Color vision support. On top of light and dark themes, accent colors, and coloring your category groups, there are actual color blindness palettes (deuteranopia, protanopia, tritanopia, achromatopsia) so the green, amber, and red status colors aren't useless to you.

A what if mode. You can stress test the next 6 months and drop in a possible expense, like a new car payment, to see how it would hit you, all without touching your real budget, or creating a new budget, and if you think it makes sense you can add the new category/s to your actual budget in just a click.

You can hide your debt. If you're paying it down and you don't want that number staring at you every time you open the app, you can just hide it from the sidebar.

Made with sharing your screen in mind. If you make videos or you're doing a demo, you can hide your email (and your debt numbers) so you can show the app without showing your whole life.

Easy to come over from YNAB. You can import your YNAB data and then connect your accounts with SimpleFin, Plaid, or both, whatever you prefer.

One login, a few budgets. Keep a personal budget, a shared household one, and a business one, all separate. And if you'd rather host it yourself and keep your data fully in your hands, you can do that too.

Where it's at right now: still in development and heading toward a beta with real people. It's desktop and iPad first at the moment, and I've got iOS and Android apps in the works. No website yet, that'll go up once I finish some bugs, based on some family feedback.

The best part, you get a 60 day free trial! 30 to 45 days honestly isn't enough to test out something that will help you with your money. Which is why you get 60 days to try it out.

On pricing, I want to be upfront, and I really do want your input. I'm building this to be affordable and not nickel and dime anyone later. Here's roughly where my head is at:

• Manual budgeting is free, full stop. You get the budgeting and the tax tracking without paying a cent. You only pay if you want your transactions to flow in automatically from your bank, since that part actually costs me to run.
• Bring your own bank connection with SimpleFin: around $10 a month, or $60 a year. It can be cheaper because SimpleFin barely costs me anything when you bring your own connection.
• Managed bank sync with Plaid, where I handle the connection for you: around $15 a month, or $84 a year.
• Self hosting: a one time $49, then it's yours, on your own server with your own keys.

A few honest questions:

1. Does that feel fair, or off?
2. What would you pay for sync tiers?
3. What's the price where you'd just say no?
4. What would you like to be customizable ?

If this sounds like something you've been wanting, leave a comment and tell me what matters most to you. I'm keeping a list of folks who want first crack at the beta.

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For the last 6 years I've paid for my Spotify a year at a time using the $99 12-month gift card. It was the whole system for me. Buy the card once, redeem it, done, don't think about it again until next year. No monthly charge to babysit, and and extra amount of savings in my bank account annual.

This year I went to do my usual thing and every place I normally buy from either doesn't carry it anymore, I looked for both digital or physical and nothing. Not the $99 annual, not the 3 month, not anything. The pegs are just empty.... Walmart, Target... Costco ...

So I'm trying to figure out if this is actually dead or if I'm just looking in the wrong places. Did Spotify fully kill off gift cards, digital and physical both? Or is there still somewhere legit selling them that I'm missing?

If they really are gone, what's everyone who paid annually doing now? Since they upped their prices that means I have roughly 160 bucks I have to give over every year. YouTube Music isn't even remotely close to the flexibility I have with my music.

Country USA

Budget Under $1,000 USD

Are you open to refurbs/used options? Yes, but only from retailers with a certified refurbishment program that verifies specs and functionality fully, nothing hidden or held back.

Screen size 13" to 15", needs to be portable enough to move between home, family, and coffee shops without being a hassle

Weight limit Reasonably light, portability matters

Purpose Gaming, coding experimentation, and general sandbox use

Form factor Standard/Clamshell

Intended usage Coding and experimenting locally, VS Code, dev environments, possibly AI tools. I already have a MacBook Air for my actual work so this is purely a sandbox machine I can break and learn on without worry. For gaming, I'm currently into titles like Stray, Resident Evil, The Sims, and Water Park Simulator, but I expect to push into more graphically intense games over time as my interests grow. I'd like the hardware to have some room to grow with me. Will also be connected to an external monitor regularly.

Desired battery life 4 to 6 hours is fine. Will mostly be plugged in when on the external monitor, so battery isn't a top priority.

Please list, in order of most important to least important, the priority between Size, Weight, Performance, Battery life:

Performance, weight, size, battery life

Info/Requirements No strong brand preference, though Asus and Lenovo have been suggested before. I want a screen that still looks decent when not plugged into an external monitor. Open to Windows or Linux, leaning toward whatever works best as a coding and gaming sandbox. Not looking to baby this machine the way I do my MacBook, so value and durability matter more than premium feel. No preference on Intel vs AMD.

Had labs done this morning for two different doctors. Early, half awake, not my best state. I tell the phlebotomist I'm a hard stick like I always do. She doesn't ask where people usually get it, doesn't ask about my veins, just gets the needle out and goes for it. No warning, nothing. She got it on the first try, which is fine, great, whatever.

But then she said it. "I don't know who told you you were a hard stick."

I've been a hard stick since I was five years old. Probably longer, but I was adopted so I don't have the full history. I was diagnosed with EDS at nine, and I'm pretty sure that's exactly why. My veins roll, they're small, and most people reach for a butterfly needle because the standard gauge hurts more than it has to. On top of that, I bruise easily after draws, which is its own thing. That's part of why I always try to ask for someone experienced before they start. Sometimes that actually helps. Sometimes I don't get a choice.

It doesn't matter how hydrated I am or how good my week has been. This has never not been an issue.

Someone getting it on the first try doesn't erase twenty-plus years of difficult draws. It just means today was a good day, or she was skilled, or both. That doesn't make me wrong about my own body.

Saying "I don't know who told you that" to a chronic illness patient who knows their veins is the medical equivalent of telling a lesbian she just hasn't met the right guy. It's dismissive. It invalidates something real that I've been managing my whole life. And it makes me feel like I have to prove that I'm difficult before I'm allowed to advocate for myself.

Does anyone else get this? And do you have a script for responding in the moment? Because I never know what to say when it happens. It just makes me so angry when I'm heading out the door.