A self-hosted allowance kiosk for game spending at home. Gamers check their balance and log Steam, Epic, and other purchases from any browser on the LAN; parents set daily budgets and optional savings rules on a separate admin page.
Teach money management. A daily allowance that accrues in real time turns abstract limits into something gamers can see and reason about - how much they have, what a purchase costs, and what they have left.
Add structure to in-game spending. Instead of negotiating every sale ad hoc, the household agrees on a budget up front. Purchases go in the ledger; the rules stay consistent.
Let gamers own their Steam budget. Each gamer logs their own transactions from a phone or PC. They build the habit of checking balance before buying and recording what they spent, without handing over your payment password for every checkout.
Game Budget runs on your network. Your data stays in a plain-text journal on your machine
- no cloud account, no subscription.
- Docker Desktop (or Docker Engine + Compose on Linux)
- Port 8080 available on the host
- Devices on the same home Wi‑Fi / LAN
No app install on gamers' devices - only a web browser.
git clone <repository-url> game-budget
cd game-budget
mkdir -p data
docker compose up --build -dOpen http://<host-ip>:8080 from a phone or PC on your LAN (find the IP with hostname -I on Linux).
- Go to
/admin→ log in withadmin - Change the admin password
- Set daily budgets per gamer → Save settings
- Bookmark the kiosk URL for the family
New to the project? Follow the full walkthrough: Getting started (fresh install or migrating an existing ledger).
| Guide | Description |
|---|---|
| Getting started | Install, first run, customize gamers, checklist |
| Operations | Backup, upgrade, logs, HTTPS, bare metal |
| Troubleshooting | Common problems |
| Smoke test | Verify an install end-to-end |
| Application overview | Ledger format, architecture, security |
| Roadmap | Planned work |
| Path | Purpose |
|---|---|
data/journal.dat |
Ledger journal (Docker volume) |
data/config.yaml |
Gamer names, colors, budgets, admin hash |
Back up ./data before upgrades. Import via /admin accepts any filename; export downloads journal.dat.
nix develop # optional: Python, ledger, uv, just
uv sync --group dev
just init && just run
just testMIT - see LICENSE. ledger-cli is BSD 3-Clause - see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.