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For many people, keeping track of personal expenses and compiling a budget can be challenging tasks. However, with Structured Query Language (SQL), you can create your own personal expense tracker and budgeting system. This article will guide you through the process
Creating the Database
Firstly, let’s create a database for this purpose. We will call it PersonalFinance.
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CREATE DATABASE PersonalFinance; |
Upon the database creation’s success, we need to set this database to be used for our operations. Here is how to do it.
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USE PersonalFinance; |
Creating the Tables
In order to track expenses, we need to create appropriate tables. We will create two tables: one for the ‘Category’ of expenses and one for the ‘Expense’ itself.
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CREATE TABLE Category ( CategoryID int PRIMARY KEY, CategoryName varchar(255) NOT NULL ); CREATE TABLE Expense ( ExpenseID int PRIMARY KEY, CategoryID int FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES Category(CategoryID), Amount decimal NOT NULL, ExpenseDate date NOT NULL ); |
Here, in the Expense table, CategoryID is a foreign key that references CategoryID in the Category table. This enables us to link expenses with their respective categories.
Inserting Data
Let’s insert some dummy data into our tables.
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INSERT INTO Category (CategoryID, CategoryName) VALUES (1, 'Groceries'), (2, 'Entertainment'), (3, 'Rent'), (4, 'Utilities'); INSERT INTO Expense(ExpenseID, CategoryID, Amount, ExpenseDate) VALUES (1, 1, 95.20, '2022-02-01'), (2, 2, 120.00, '2022-02-03'), (3, 3, 800.00, '2022-02-01'), (4, 4, 90.00, '2022-02-02'); |
Querying the Data
We can now retrieve the data with SQL queries. For instance, we can calculate the total expenditure for a specific category like this:
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SELECT Category.CategoryName, SUM(Expense.Amount) as TotalExpense FROM Category JOIN Expense on Category.CategoryID = Expense.CategoryID WHERE CategoryName = 'Groceries'; |
This concludes our simple guide to creating a personal expense tracking and budgeting system using SQL. Remember, SQL is a powerful tool that can help you manage your financial data effectively. As you get more comfortable with SQL, you can extend this basic structure to include more complex features such as recurring expenses, income tracking, and so on.