Deep dive into calculating Dutch Road Tax
Nov 29, 2024
From Curiosity to Code: How I Built a Python Script to Calculate Dutch Road Tax When I was looking for a new car, I made a list of all my options and started breaking down the costs—road tax, insurance, maintenance, and fuel usage. Every time I needed to check the cost of the road tax, I turned to the Belastingdienst’s tool. But as I went back and forth between different vehicles, I began to think, There has to be a more efficient way to calculate this. …
My experience of Build Stuff 2024
Nov 18, 2024
My Experience at Build Stuff 2024 Last week, I attended Build Stuff 2024 in Vilnius, Lithuania, and it still is one of the most well-organized conferences I’ve ever been to. Build Stuff is one of the leading tech conferences in Europe, known for its cutting-edge content and diverse community. It attracts developers, engineers, and tech leaders to share knowledge and showcase innovations in various domains, ranging from code to developer wellness. I have been here before in 2022 and 2023, which were both hosted in the same venue. The event was hosted in a hotel, which added a layer of convenience that’s hard to overstate. Not having to travel during the day meant I could focus entirely on the sessions and workshops without worrying about logistics. During breaks, it was easy to return to my room to decompress and process the information. This setup made the entire experience smooth and enjoyable. …
Update on spending and frugality
Jul 02, 2021
April and May were good months. I did not spend a lot more than average even though I bought new hobby gear in May. I imagine the summer months to be more expensive as I would like to do other activities then, mainly some old hobbies I did before. Unfortunately those hobbies require stuff to be able to do them which requires me to buy it. Due to the hobbies being kind of new for me I had to buy new stuff and kind of went overboard. I am still striving to find a hobby which does not require a lot of stuff to do. I know of some but it seems those hobbies have a smaller community or people find a way to make you spend money on them anyway, via group lessons or coaching. …
Imagine your ideal day
Mar 26, 2021
“Imagine your ideal day” is something I have read on multiple blogs and comes forward in a number of books. I found it hard to actually visualize it, I’m not even sure what I want to do let alone how it should be done. But during reading more books and putting my thought on markdown files for this blog I got more comfortable about thinking how I would like to do things. For me it helped to break it up in separate pieces instead of one flowing day. …
No buy February 2021
Mar 01, 2021
Rough start again this month. Got dragged into the meme stock GME and bought in at $240 and again at $95 to average it out. Seems to have lost around $600 right there. My personal spending is still zero for any goods. Did buy some craft beer but that is in my living costs. As the challenge is not about not buying anything, just physical and digital goods. I did start spending a lot of time on Reddit and Youtube, getting dragged into the news and negativity. Which let to the GME fiasco for me. …
No buy January 2021
Feb 01, 2021
Well let me start of by saying that I am happy I called it a “No Buy Year” instead of a “No Spend Year” as my cat claimed most of my budget this month. She had gotten sick in the first few days of the new year and had to spend some days at the vet and we had to give her antibiotics and pain suppressants for a few weeks. But due to not buying anything I had enough money to pays the bills immediately. …
First week of FLOSS
Jan 08, 2021
My start of the year To start clean and use FOSS as much as possible, I will reinstall my laptop with Arch on the 1st of January. You can see the programs what I will install here. I would like to switch to Parabola but my WiFi card and BIOS prevents me. I could order one from a Chinese web shop for under 20 Euros, flash my BIOS and cross my fingers but I am not read for that yet. Perhaps I will make an exception to my No Buy Year for this or I would replace my laptop with one that can use 100% FOSS. Ironically one of the laptops that can run Parabola is a Macbook, version 1,1 and 1,2, due to Atheros WiFi cards. …
Moving to FLOSS apps
Jan 06, 2021
Last year I started tracking my car and motorcycles fuel economy and costs. For this I used Fuelly and their app aCar, a proprietary app from the Google Play Store. I chose this app because the website already had a bunch of data on fuel economy and cost of other vehicles. The app works alright although it does serve ads. From the reviews I can gather that they first sold a Pro version and later on switched the Pro features to a subscription model and essentially killing the previously paid features. …
Going full FOSS
Jan 02, 2021
I started using Linux full time around 4 years ago, due to it being easier to install and work with Python. I started out with Ubuntu(as most people will) and never looked back. Around 2 years ago I started looking into making my setup more geared towards me. So that my computer will work for me instead of me fighting my operating system. During that time I found Luke Smith’s channel and moved towards Arch. I really liked the simplicity and the fact that you control what is installed. …
No buy 2021
Jan 01, 2021
One of my goals for 2021 and one that I had for the last 4 years is to increase my income by x amount. The last few years I have focused on minimizing my expenses through minimalism and trying to do most things myself. I managed to save almost half my income the previous years and I plan to increase that the coming year. Through minimalism and decluttering I gained a greater insight in what I value and what I “need”. A lot of things society or the media tells you you need you really don’t or you might already have it, just a lesser version of it. …