I had the same feeling with the books, the series got me hooked tho!

I use firefly-iii. You can setup rules and import from csv files. I even have it integrated with enablebanking so it is fully automatic.

There are also mobile apps that will work with your own server.

I can really recommend the old Thinkpad T-series business laptops if you don’t game on it. I have bought one for myself and my mother, works great!

Otherwise the Dell Latitude which are business models too and can be bought cheaply.

That goodbye was brutal