Budgeting App - Full Stack Django + Next.js

A personal finance tracker built with Django REST Framework and Next.js. Track income and expenses, organize transactions by category, and view monthly summaries.

Status: Learning project with comprehensive documentation ✅

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📚 Documentation Guide

This project includes extensive documentation tailored to your learning needs:

For Getting Started (Right Now)

👉 QUICK_START.md - 5-minute setup

• Copy-paste commands for immediate setup
• One-time vs recurring commands
• Common errors quick fixes
• Checklist to verify installation

For Detailed Setup Instructions

👉 PROJECT_SETUP.md - Complete setup guide

• Step-by-step backend (Django) setup with venv
• Step-by-step frontend (Next.js) setup
• Running both servers simultaneously
• Database management
• Troubleshooting for 10 common issues
• Testing the API with curl/Postman
• Development workflow
• Production deployment notes

For Understanding the Code (Django Backend - Learn Here!)

👉 CODEBASE_ANALYSIS.md - Deep dive (60KB, ~2000 lines)

This is your comprehensive learning resource for Django:

• Class-Based Views vs Function-Based Views ⭐ (You probably forgot this!)
  • Detailed comparison with code examples
  • Inheritance hierarchy and mixins
  • Method resolution order
  • When to use each approach
• Django ORM & QuerySets ⭐ (Critical backend concept)
  • Basic operations (get, filter, aggregate)
  • Date/DateTime filtering
  • Security patterns (filtering by user)
  • Query optimization
  • Performance considerations
• Plus: Architecture, models, serializers, authentication, database schema, API endpoints, known issues, learning path

For Django Quick Reference

👉 DJANGO_REFRESHER.md - Cheat sheet (500+ lines)

Quick lookup for Django concepts used in this project

For Official Documentation & Learning Resources

👉 RESOURCES.md - Complete reference guide

• Curated links to official documentation (Django, DRF, React, Next.js, etc.)
• Quick links by use case ("I need to fix a bug", "I want to understand X")
• Recommended reading order
• Learning platforms and communities
• API testing tools
• Deployment platforms

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🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10+
• Node.js 18+

Setup (5 minutes)

# Terminal 1: Backend
cd budgeting-app/backend
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # macOS/Linux
pip install -r requirements.txt
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py runserver

# Terminal 2: Frontend (NEW WINDOW)
cd budgeting-app/frontend
npm install
echo "NEXT_PUBLIC_API_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8000/api" > .env.local
npm run dev

Visit:

• Frontend: http://localhost:3000
• Backend: http://localhost:8000/api/wallets/
• Admin: http://localhost:8000/admin

For detailed instructions, see QUICK_START.md

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📖 Start Learning

1. Setup first: Follow QUICK_START.md
2. Understand the code: Read CODEBASE_ANALYSIS.md
3. Study Django concepts: Use DJANGO_REFRESHER.md as reference
4. All code has comments: Check backend/wallets/*.py files