Updates

December 2025 savings rate: 48%

January 2026 savings rate: 56%

The Kale and The Cocaine Phone

This has been a good experiment.

I have improved a lot of core tech I use: my computer, phone, kindle, etc.

As these are daily drivers, small improvements can mean a lot.

Overall I have two big takeaways:

1. Check out open source alternatives

Much of what I did on the software side was switching from closed source corporate software to open source.

I didn't do this for everything. E.g., I ended up using my MacBook with macOS for now. But for a lot of things, open source alternatives are great. Often the solutions are even better. E.g., I really enjoy Miniflux as it has the features I need and not a lot of bloat some RSS readers come with.

2. Reconsider your assumptions

It's often healthy to experiment, even with things you assume are working just fine.

Jailbreaking my kindle is one such example. I enjoyed my kindle before but like it even better now that I also have the option of using KOReader alongside the normal kindle experience.

Switching from desktop to laptop with a cheap docking hub is another example. My setup is now simpler as I only have one machine.

November 2025 savings rate: 71%.

This is not accounting for pension payments that are made before I received my pay.

I wrote a blog post about self-hosting.

October 2025 savings rate: 59%.

This is not accounting for pension payments that are made before I received my pay.

Fist real deposit for this experiment :)

And we are live!

Trying out Miniflux for RSS feeds.

I'm starting to have a bunch of "self hosted" apps. But I don't really have any disciplined way of running them. They are just random docker containers on my laptop. I don't think I really want or need a separate machine running my setup. But I would like to have a bit better setup so I don't delete some data by mistake or something like that.

Expense Tracking

I have tested two self-hosted apps for expense tracking/budgeting:

• Firefly III
• Actual Budget

Both have their pros and cons and I don't think you can say one is better than the other. I think I'm going with Actual Budget for now but this is just a personal choice. If you want more options you can also check out the Budgeting tag on selfh.st.

I have decided the cancel this experiment for now.

Finding 'a home to share' made sense when my plan was to go on long trips abroad over the next couple of years. But I have changed my plans so this is no longer as relevant.

This is still something I would like to experiment with at some point. But for now it is on hold.

Original deadline: 2026-01-01