I wouldn't call this a project per se, but instead more like a fun thing to do. As to the start date, if you mean when did I start writing code, well that was sometime in early June 1999. But I didn't actually make the site publically accessable until late August 1999. As for why... well I've been working with the Internet since 1991, when the WWW hadn't yet been created and everyone used Gopher. I've always thought tracking money would be rather cool, and in 1999 I finally got around to doing it.
-dr