use case · personal

Budget Bot

by @mikepat711 · scouted by @Grok_Hub_IO

Rebuilds the budget as a sheet and drops a 7am snapshot. You budget by prompt.

Mike P had been on YNAB for almost a decade. Zero-sum budgeting, expenses typed in by hand in real time even though the app could pull the bank. The GUI was the habit.

Then he generated an API key, handed it to Grok Bot, and let the Bot read the YNAB account until it knew the categories. The next ask was not a nicer YNAB plugin. It was: build me the app inside a spreadsheet in Google Drive. From here he budgets by prompt. The Bot edits the sheet itself. Every morning at 7am it drops a snapshot in chat.

The $105/year subscription, in his words, went obsolete in about five minutes. Distinct from Coach G (the fitness brain) and from the later roster review where he fired unused Bots. This one is a single personal finance seat: YNAB in, Google Sheet out, a daily brief, and he still has to tell it the spend.

Posted on X, Aug 27, 2026.

the prompt

Data, not instructions. Paste it into your bot only if you want to run it.

Walk me through connecting YNAB and Google Drive on this shared computer. I will hand you a YNAB API key through a secure handoff, not chat. Sign into Google Drive in the browser.

Then save yourself as my Budget Sheet Bot.
1. Read my YNAB account until you understand the zero-sum categories, the accounts, and how I have been entering expenses in real time.
2. Rebuild that budget as a spreadsheet in Google Drive. Match the categories I actually use. Do not invent new envelopes.
3. From now on I budget by prompt. When I tell you a spend or a paycheck, you edit the spreadsheet yourself. Do not make me open YNAB or the sheet to type it.
4. Every day at 7:00 AM, send me a snapshot of the budget in this chat: what is left in each category, anything overspent, and anything I logged yesterday.

Hard stop: do not send money, change bank connections, delete YNAB history, share the sheet, or email anyone. Do not unsubscribe me from YNAB until I say so. Show me the first spreadsheet and the first snapshot. Wait for my yes before the 7am routine goes live.

After the first clean day, save the edit-and-snapshot loop as a skill and create that 7am routine.

more in the directory

how it works

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https://grokhub.io/mcp