Cash Tracker

A minimalist personal expense tracking bot that uses Telegram as the interface and LLM-powered natural language understanding.

Features

Cash Management

• Add or subtract cash: add cash 500 or -200 cash
• Specify dates: add cash 1000 on 12.8.25 (defaults to today)
• Check balance: current balance

Expense Tracking

• Add expenses naturally: 500 fruits or fruits 500
• Automatic categorization via LLM with confirmation
• Specify dates: 500 batteries on 15.10.25
• Modify or delete by replying to any message: change to 400, delete, or change category to Food

Expense Analysis

• Time-based breakdowns: expenses this month or expenses from 1 oct to 31 oct
• Category-specific queries: food expenses this month
• View all categories: show categories
• Visual charts (pie and bar graphs) - TODO

Architecture

Stack:

• Rust application
• Telegram Bot API for messaging
• LLM with function calling (Groq as inference provider)
• Remote Turso database (libsql)
• Chart generation for visualizations - TODO

Design:

• Message-based context tracking (no conversation state)
• Immediate commits with easy corrections
• Auto-categorization with user category caching
• Natural language date parsing

Setup

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.89.0+
• Telegram bot token (via @BotFather)
• Turso database
• Groq API key

Environment Variables

Create a .env file:

TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=your_bot_token
ERROR_BOT_TOKEN=your_error_bot_token
TURSO_AUTH_TOKEN=your_turso_token
GROQ_API_KEY=your_groq_key
TELEGRAM_ERROR_CHANNEL_ID=your_error_channel_id

Local Development

# Install dependencies
cargo build

# Run the bot
cargo run

Deployment

Docker

Build and run:

docker build -t cash-tracker .
docker run -d --env-file .env cash-tracker

Production

The application is designed to run on any VPS:

# Build release binary
cargo build --release

# Run with environment variables
./target/release/cash-tracker

Ensure all environment variables are properly configured in your production environment.

License

MIT