Your initial question does make a good point: in general there isn't as much easy tooling to extract information out of the ledger because many of us have custom scripts and otherwise bean-query is the way to get numbers out of it. I have a script for NW over time for example but it's in the beanlabs repo (see list archive I've shared it before). I should make API documentation (and improvements to the API) so that writing scripts feels more of a first class experience.
On Tue, Aug 19, 2025, 02:46 Viren Bhanot <[email protected]> wrote: > Thank you very much to all of you for taking the time to reply. I guess my > first mistake was to think that 'creating the ledger' was 90% of the work > done. It appears that that is just the start! From your responses, it is > clear that I need to spend more time learning bean-query, and then thinking > through all of the answers that I want. > > @Chary, the Jupyter notebook might be a great addition as it 'keeps state' > aka I can go back up the notebook to see older plots. I'd be interested in > when you release it. I agree with you and Adrian that with df + csv I > probably would end up recreating beancount + fava anyway. > > @Red, thanks for the detailed reply. > *Year by Year:* Ahh! I'm stupid. It says in big letters "Time". Don't > know why my eyes skipped that. > *Text contrast: *My Fava instance in firefox doesn't match that. The grey > is much too light. Screenshot below. > *Net Worth: *I think I have some errors with how I created my ledger, > because the numbers it spits out seem three times too high. Perhaps it has > to do with how I handle transfer of money between my different accounts > with different currencies. At least I know where to head for this. My net > worth should appear as a negative number due to the accounting sign > conventions right? > *FIRE: *I accept. It is indeed a bunch of assumptions that I must sort > out. My idea was to get a simplified answer assuming the trinity study, 4% > SWR and current savings rate+expenses continuing indefinitely. > *Restaurants: *Yes! Thank you. Exactly what I was seeking. The Balances > (yearly) table + the plot are perfect. > > As a general aside, where did you guys learn how to use Fava? I have a > preference for linearly-written documentation vs discord ask-around or just > aimlessly clicking around playing with things to figure it out. The latter > options always make me think I'm not yet *getting* how the tool behaves. > > Thank you all! > On Monday, 18 August 2025 at 18:22:55 UTC+2 Red S wrote: > >> You’ve received a lot of excellent responses and perspectives already. To >> add to those, it seems to me like most of the issues you presented either >> are already solved and are trivial, and you might need just a bit of >> exploration of the Fava UI to get what you want; or are actually very deep >> questions requiring custom solutions that you might not realize as such. >> Specifically: >> >> If I load my ledger into fava, I see some poorly-designed plots not >> useful for analyses. I don’t get the fuss. >> The plot area is too small, the colours don’t contrast well, the tooltips >> often goes off-screen, or covers the plot so I cannot see where I am. >> >> These seem to be UI issues that I don’t have, and I get annoyed rather >> easily with such issues. Platform/OS/version info might help. Recording a >> screen video and showing what you’re seeing would help a lot. >> >> Also, from what I can see, there is no way to limit the plots to just >> 2023 or 2024 etc. >> >> Type in 2023 or 2024 or ‘2023 - 2024’ into the ‘Time Box’ on the top. >> It’s very versatile. See here >> <http://172.19.83.239:5000/am-accounts/help/filters>. >> >> The most useful view is the Treemap of Expenses, but even their the text >> contrast is poor and I can’t seem to generate it year-by-year. The >> documentation also seems non-existent. >> >> The text contrast is 100% fine for me. I imagine this is an OS or browser >> setting at >> your end. Does it match the screenshot here >> <https://beancount.github.io/fava/>? >> >> But now what? How can I answer questions like: - What is my net worth? >> >> Ease: trivial. >> >> That’s what the “Balance Sheet” tab already shows in its default view. >> Pick “Converted to USD”. Or use this link >> <http://172.19.83.239:5000/main-accounts/balance_sheet/?conversion=USD&time=year+-+day&interval=day> >> and >> bookmark it. Replace USD with your currency. Replace ‘main-accounts’ with >> your title in your ledger: >> option "title" "Main accounts" >> >> >> - What is my savings rate? >> >> Ease: trivial. >> >> Income Statements -> Net Profit (default). Use “Converted to “ and >> “Yearly”. >> >> >> - What is my FIRE date at the current savings rate? >> >> Ease: moderate - complex, but there are solutions that make this >> reasonably easy. >> >> This is a much deeper question than you might realize, involving dozens >> of assumptions in your mind that no good software can figure out for you. >> What do you consider your threshold for retirement? Will you earn at the >> same rate between now and then? What’s your expense profile between now, >> retirement, and at various milestones? Eg: are there loans/mortgages to be >> paid off? Major expenses? Unforeseen expenses and how you’ll mitigate for >> those? Withdrawal pattern in retirement and how it might be based on how >> well the market is doing? Will you downsize? How will your tax rate and >> profile change? Assumptions about the market in the next few decades. Etc. >> >> I personally use some scripts with Beancount to feed all my ledger data >> into a calculator like ficalc.app that includes things I said above >> >> >> - How much have I been spending on Expenses:Restaurants >> year-over-year? >> >> Ease: trivial. >> >> Income Statment -> Click on Restaurants in the treemap -> “Changes” -> >> Pick “Yearly” on the top right -> “Balances (Yearly)” >> >> This is really nice: it gives you stacked bars that instantly let you >> zero in on problem areas while also giving you an expandable tabular >> treemap. >> >> Must I generate bean-queries for everything? Because that rather defeats >> the purpose of a ledger file in my opinion. I could just as easily list my >> postings on CSV and write python queries to it. >> >> I’d imagine 85-95% of your needs would not need bean-queries or other >> advanced solutions when you’re starting out. That’s the problem Fava >> solves. As your needs get more sophisticated, you’ll find yourself solving >> those. Beancount makes it very easy to write these custom solutions as >> fundamentally, Beancount is a versatile python library into your >> double-entry ledger. >> >> See a sample article >> <https://reds-rants.netlify.app/personal-finance/computing-taxes-with-beancount/> >> for example, or Fava-Miler <https://github.com/redstreet/fava_miler>, >> which are among many things I use Beancount for. >> >> What’s more, I don’t see how it could be interactive and *fast*? In the >> absence of a quick feedback loop, what exactly is the tedium of writing out >> all of my postings going to get me? >> >> Generally, answers everyone wants to see like some that you asked above >> are trivial. Advanced queries require custom solutions. >> >> Hope that helps! Happy accounting! >> >> >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Beancount" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/a9992310-c8fd-4981-9629-e0c55eec1ccfn%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/a9992310-c8fd-4981-9629-e0c55eec1ccfn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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