Build a monthly budget from a stripped bank export
At a glance
Josh Dubowsky uses Claude and a plain Google Sheet to review actual spending before setting a budget. This workflow is listed under Money & Bills, Budgeting, Subscriptions.
- Agents / tools
- Claude, Google Sheets, Bank CSV export
SourceBuilding a tool for these workflows? See weekly rates.
What they did
1) Download three months of bank transactions as CSV. Remove account-number columns; keep dates, descriptions, and amounts. Open Claude and a single-tab Google Sheet. 2) Paste one month's transactions and request category totals, percentages, the three largest categories, and a one-sentence spending recap. Repeat for the other months to establish actual averages. 3) Ask Claude to identify repeating charges across the three months, their monthly and annual costs, and possible overlapping services. Answer its question about whether you would purchase each subscription today before accepting its proposed savings. 4) Supply the category averages and your after-tax monthly income. Request realistic category targets, then copy the resulting budget into the Sheet. Revisit it with the next monthly export.
How it went
The author realized he had mentally counted eating-out purchases as groceries.
