---
name: monthly-budget-reality-check
description: "Turn your real income and spending into a budget you might actually stick to. Use when the user wants help with Monthly Budget Reality Check. Related topics: Finance, Budgeting, Money."
---

# Monthly Budget Reality Check

Turn your real income and spending into a budget you might actually stick to.

## 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

- **My take-home pay is** (free text, e.g. "monthly take-home pay")
- **List your regular expenses with rough amounts** (longer free text)
- **Build me a realistic monthly budget from this. Use the** (choose one: 50/30/20, zero-based, pay-yourself-first)

## Prompt template

## Budget check

My take-home pay is {{My take-home pay is}} per month. Here's roughly where it goes right now:

{{List your regular expenses with rough amounts}}

Build me a realistic monthly budget from this. Use the {{Build me a realistic monthly budget from this. Use the}} method, but bend the rules where my numbers make the textbook split impossible. Show a table with current vs suggested amounts, and tell me the single change that would free up the most money.

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Source: [Monthly Budget Reality Check on PromptBuild](https://promptbuild.io/prompt/gVh4MZX43DYR7TBK7me2/monthly-budget-reality-check)