Built BoomerBill in a Day — A Tiny App to Track Unpaid Tech Support Time
Built BoomerBill in a Day — A Tiny App to Track Unpaid Tech Support Time
Hey IH
I built a small app this week called BoomerBill.
It tracks how much time you spend on “just one quick thing” tech support and converts it into lost freelance income based on your hourly rate.
What started as a joke turned into something surprisingly revealing.
The Problem
If you’re a developer or freelancer, you probably get this:
- “My Wi-Fi stopped working.”
- “The printer won’t connect.”
- “I broke something.”
- “Just one quick thing…”
Individually, they feel small.
Collectively, they add up.
But because it’s informal, we don’t track it. And if you don’t track it, it feels like it doesn’t exist.
I wanted to measure it.
What It Does
BoomerBill is intentionally simple:
- Start / Stop timer
- Quick add presets (Wi-Fi issue, printer, “I broke something”)
- Live cost ticking up while you're helping
- Lifetime totals
- Daily / weekly / yearly averages
- Local-first (no backend, no accounts)
It converts minutes into lost income using your hourly rate.
No billing. No invoices. Just awareness.
Tech Stack
- Vue 3 (Composition API)
- Pinia for state
- DaisyUI + Tailwind
- LocalStorage persistence
- AGPLv3 license
No SSR.
No backend.
No analytics.
No SaaS.
Just a small, honest tool.
Interesting Build Challenge
The trickiest part was keeping the timer visually ticking every second without mutating store state continuously.
The timer UI updates locally.
The session only commits to the store on Stop.
This kept state clean and testable.
Why I Built It
Two reasons:
- Curiosity — how much invisible labor am I actually giving away?
- Boundaries — data makes it easier to decide when to say no.
After tracking for a week, the numbers were… higher than I expected.
Try It
Live demo:
https://boomerbill.net/
Questions for You
- Do you track unpaid support time?
- Do you bill friends/family? Never? Sometimes?
- Have you found a healthy boundary strategy?
Would love feedback on both the idea and the implementation.
