For the past few years, all of my finances have been managed through spreadsheets. Before I spend even one cent of my paycheck, I have every last bit alloted into various categories. As I spend, I update the budget. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but it pretty much manages itself, really.

As some of you might know already, I like to automate, well, just about everything. Anything that can be offloaded to a scheduled job or whatever will free up extra resources for me to devote to other — more enjoyable — tasks.

My latest goal is to do some integration with Google Sheets, a bit of coding, and a cheap wifi-enabled digital picture frame.

The idea is to display an image of the spreadsheet, for quick and easy reference, in the picture frame. And then I would also include a “Last Modified” date and maybe a color-coded visual indicator to show when I am overdue on updating my budget.

If I am able to get that working, I would then get super-ambitious and try to also integrate with my bank, since I utilize my current balance in my budgets to always ensure I haven’t missed any transactions.

I know this project has limited appeal to most folks, but… Who cares? It should be fun.