The Maintenance Threshold

Siddhant Goel just hit a decade of tracking his personal finances in plain text. Ten years. 45,000 lines across 16 files. The system works—but the interesting number isn't the line count.

It's 30-45 minutes per month.

That's his maintenance cost. Below that threshold, a system becomes invisible infrastructure—like brushing teeth. You don't decide to do it. You just do it. Above that threshold, systems accumulate guilt. They become items on a list you're perpetually behind on. Eventually, you stop.

Most tool selection focuses on the wrong moment. We obsess over features and onboarding. We ask: What can this do? How powerful is it? How quickly can I get started?

We rarely ask the question that actually determines survival: What will this cost me to keep running?

The Hidden Tax

Complex systems carry a hidden tax that only becomes visible when you stop paying it. The Notion workspace with seventeen databases. The Obsidian vault with custom plugins requiring updates. The sophisticated automation that breaks when an API changes.

These systems don't fail because they lack capability. They fail because maintenance-you has the same twenty-four hours as setup-you, but less enthusiasm and more competing demands.

Goel's system survived a decade because he designed for the person he'd actually be ten years later, not the person he imagined during the dopamine hit of setup weekend. Plain text files. Local storage. Version control. Custom Python importers he wrote once and rarely touches.

No subscription to cancel. No sync conflicts to resolve. No format to migrate when a company folds.

The Decade Test

Here's the filter that changes how you select tools: What are you building now that you'll still be using a decade from now?

Not what you could use. What you will use—given that future-you has the same friction thresholds as present-you, the same tendency to abandon systems that demand too much, the same finite attention being competed for by everything else in your life.

The Decade Test isn't about predicting the future. It's about being honest regarding your own maintenance capacity. Maintenance-you is future-you in miniature. If you're not doing the weekly review now, you won't be doing it in ten years. If the tool requires monthly tinkering to stay functional, it's not a tool—it's a hobby.

Some hobbies are worth having. But know which one you're choosing.

The Actionable Shift

Before adopting any new system, estimate its monthly maintenance cost in minutes. Not setup cost—that's a one-time payment. Maintenance cost. The recurring tax you'll pay for as long as you use it.

Your threshold isn't Goel's threshold. Maybe you have an hour. Maybe you have fifteen minutes. The number matters less than knowing it—and being honest about whether the shiny new system fits underneath.

The shift is from capability thinking to sustainability thinking. The most powerful system you'll abandon is worth less than the modest system you'll still be running a decade out.

Goel's Beancount setup isn't impressive because of what it can do. It's impressive because he's still doing it—thirty to forty-five minutes at a time, for a decade, with no end in sight.

Sources: Siddhant Goel, "10 years of personal finances in plain text files"