40. Budget planner
Budget planner is a personal productivity app that can still show business-grade structure when built professionally.
Why employers care
This works best when you treat it like a real product: clean UI, useful data model, validation, search, and deployment.
Main build outline
- Create the main Budget planner records with categories, dates, notes, and completion/status tracking.
- Use SQL Server or SQLite locally, then upgrade to hosted SQL Server when publishing.
- Build Blazor Server pages with a simple dashboard and clean forms.
- Deploy publicly and add screenshots, setup notes, and a clear README.
Modern .NET stack
- Frontend: Blazor Server or ASP.NET Core MVC/Razor Pages.
- Backend: C# services, validation, dependency injection, and clean folders.
- Database: SQL Server locally, then SmarterASP SQL Server or Azure SQL.
- Hosting: SmarterASP for simple portfolio hosting, or Azure/AWS for cloud practice.
- Stretch: GitHub Actions, Docker, dashboards, and small AI helper features.
Portfolio proof
- README with problem, screenshots, tech stack, and setup notes.
- GitHub commits that show steady feature development.
- Sample data that looks like a real business workflow.
- No secrets in source control.