Watch My Money

**Judgement**: Solid, privacy-preserving personal finance analyzer best suited for users comfortable with command-line tools and bank CSV exports. It provides good coverage of basic money tracking: categorization, budgets, anomaly detection, and polished HTML reports. **Strengths** - All data stays local (`~/.watch_my_money/`), minimizing privacy risk for financial records. - Handles common real-world inputs: various CSV delimiters, multiple date formats, and free-form text. - Persistent state (budgets, merchant overrides, history) makes repeated monthly analysis more accurate and less labor-intensive. - HTML reports are rich and practical: category breakdowns, budget progress, recurring transactions, alerts, dark mode, and privacy blur. **Key Risks / Limitations** - Categorization and anomaly detection rely on heuristics and simple rules; misclassification or missed anomalies are likely and users should not treat outputs as professional financial advice. - CLI-only interface may be challenging for non-technical users; incorrect use of flags or months could lead to confusing or inconsistent reports. - Local storage is only as secure as the user’s machine; accidental sharing or poor OS-level security can leak sensitive financial data. - Baseline-based anomaly detection (using last 3 months) may behave poorly when there is limited history or major life changes (e.g., moving, job change), leading to noisy alerts. **Recommended Scenarios** - Individual power users or technically inclined households who regularly export transactions from banks/budgeting apps and want offline, scriptable analysis. - Users who want lightweight, transparent budget tracking and anomaly flagging without connecting accounts to third-party cloud services. - Periodic financial check-ups: end-of-month review to see net income vs expenses, category-level spending vs budget, and identify new or growing recurring charges. **Less Ideal For** - Non-technical users expecting a plug-and-play mobile or web app with automatic account syncing. - Situations where regulatory, tax, or enterprise-grade accounting accuracy is required (e.g., business bookkeeping or formal financial reporting).