---
name: monthly-budget-builder
description: "For when you earn enough on paper but the month keeps ending badly. Use when the user wants help with Monthly Budget Builder. Related topics: Finance, Planning, Lifestyle."
---

# Monthly Budget Builder

For when you earn enough on paper but the month keeps ending badly.

## How to use this skill

1. Ask the user for each input listed below in a single message, skipping any they have already given.
2. Where options are listed, offer them, but accept other answers too.
3. Fill the answers into the prompt template, then follow the completed prompt to produce the result.

## Inputs

- **Take-home per month** (free text, e.g. "After tax")
- **How steady is it** (choose one: Same every month, Varies a little, Varies a lot, Seasonal)
- **Fixed and unavoidable** (longer free text)
- **Everything else, best guess** (longer free text)
- **Debt payments beyond the minimum** (free text, e.g. "Or write none")
- **Irregular costs that ambush me** (longer free text)
- **Household** (choose one: Just me, Me and a partner, Family with kids, Shared house)
- **What I want out of this** (choose any: Stop going overdrawn, Save a deposit, Clear debt, Spend without guilt, Just understand where it goes)
- **How much restriction will I actually tolerate** (free text, e.g. "dropdown: Very little")

## Prompt template

# Monthly budget, built from what I actually spend

You're acting as a financial planner who has seen a thousand budgets fail because they were built for an imaginary version of the person. Build mine for the real one.

**Money coming in**

- Take-home per month: {{Take-home per month}}
- How steady is it: {{How steady is it}}

**Money going out**

- Fixed and unavoidable: {{Fixed and unavoidable}}
- Everything else, best guess: {{Everything else, best guess}}
- Debt payments beyond the minimum: {{Debt payments beyond the minimum}}
- Irregular costs that ambush me: {{Irregular costs that ambush me}}

**Context**

- Household: {{Household}}
- What I want out of this: {{What I want out of this}}
- How much restriction will I actually tolerate: {{How much restriction will I actually tolerate}}

Give me category targets as real numbers. Show the irregular costs as a monthly amount set aside, because that is usually the gap between a budget that works on paper and one that survives March.

Then tell me the two or three categories where the money is genuinely leaking, and what a reduction I would actually stick to looks like there. If my numbers do not add up, say so plainly rather than trimming the fun category until the spreadsheet balances.

Finish with one change to make this month.

---

Source: [Monthly Budget Builder on PromptBuild](https://promptbuild.io/prompt/VxA7HkBbEIPWRe1pJJw4/monthly-budget-builder)