{"slug": "student-expense-ai-helping-my-friend-spend-smarter", "title": "Student Expense AI: Helping My Friend Spend Smarter", "summary": "A developer built Student Expense AI, a tool that lets a college friend log expenses by typing natural-language entries such as \"I spent ₹180 on lunch today,\" which the system then categorizes and tracks against budgets. The project uses React, FastAPI, and PostgreSQL, with the open-weight Gemma model handling the natural-language parsing so core AI functionality does not depend entirely on a closed API.", "body_md": "*This is a submission for the [Hacktoberfest Weekend Challenge: Build for a Friend](https://dev.to/challenges/hacktoberfest-weekend-2026-10-01)*\n\nI built **Student Expense AI** for a college friend who struggles to track daily expenses.\n\nInstead of manually adding every expense, they can simply type:\n\n\"I spent ₹180 on lunch today.\"\n\nThe AI understands the expense, categorizes it, and helps track budgets and spending.\n\n[https://expanse-checker-diqw360kj-amanumrao28-1097s-projects.vercel.app/](https://expanse-checker-diqw360kj-amanumrao28-1097s-projects.vercel.app/)\n\n[https://github.com/amanumrao28-png/Expanse_Checker/tree/main](https://github.com/amanumrao28-png/Expanse_Checker/tree/main)\n\nBuilt with **React, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, and Gemma**.\n\nGemma is used for:\n\nUsing open-weight **Gemma** gives the project more flexibility and allows the core AI functionality to run without depending entirely on a closed AI API.\n\n[Add DevRelay session if available]", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/student-expense-ai-helping-my-friend-spend-smarter", "canonical_source": "https://dev.to/aman_umrao_5a04cbcce20174/student-expense-ai-helping-my-friend-spend-smarter-20ij", "published_at": "2026-10-04 18:33:25+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-04 18:43:11.136796+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-tools", "large-language-models", "natural-language-processing", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Student Expense AI", "Gemma", "React", "FastAPI", "PostgreSQL", "Hacktoberfest"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/student-expense-ai-helping-my-friend-spend-smarter", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/student-expense-ai-helping-my-friend-spend-smarter.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/student-expense-ai-helping-my-friend-spend-smarter.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/student-expense-ai-helping-my-friend-spend-smarter.jsonld"}}