Weekly Financial Snapshot

Provides a quick weekly overview of your personal finances -- spending versus budget, unusual transactions, savings progress, and bill payment status. Connects to your bank accounts through Plaid, Teller, or manual CSV import without requiring a full budgeting app. Designed for the person who wants financial awareness in 2 minutes per week, not a comprehensive accounting system.

Supported Platforms & Integrations

Platform	Setup Method	Auth Type	Notes
Plaid	Plaid API (Link)	OAuth via Plaid Link	12,000+ banks, credit cards, investments
Teller	Teller API	Certificate-based	US banks with direct API connections
Mint CSV Export	CSV file import	None (local)	Import from Mint/Credit Karma exports
Apple Card	CSV/OFX export	None (local)	Monthly statement exports

When to Use This Skill

• Use this when you want weekly financial awareness without daily budgeting overhead
• Use this when you want to catch unusual transactions or subscription creep early
• Use this when you track spending against a budget but do not want a complex app
• Consider alternatives when you need real-time transaction alerts (use bank app notifications)

Quick Start

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# Minimal configuration - financial-snapshot.yml
skill: weekly-financial-snapshot
schedule: "sunday-09:00"
accounts:
  - name: "Checking"
    source: plaid
    type: checking
  - name: "Credit Card"
    source: plaid
    type: credit
  - name: "Savings"
    source: plaid
    type: savings
budget:
  monthly_total: 5000

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claude /weekly-financial-snapshot

Expected Output

FINANCIAL SNAPSHOT - Week of March 9-15, 2026
Week 2 of March | 16 days remaining in month

SPENDING THIS WEEK: $847.23
  Groceries:      $142.50 / $600 mo  (24% used, on track)
  Dining:         $89.00 / $300 mo   (30% used, slightly ahead)
  Transportation: $45.00 / $200 mo   (23% used, on track)
  Subscriptions:  $34.99 / $150 mo   (23% used, on track)
  Entertainment:  $67.00 / $200 mo   (34% used, watch this)
  Shopping:       $312.74 / $400 mo  (78% used, WARNING)
  Utilities:      $0.00 / $250 mo    (0% used, bill due March 22)
  Other:          $156.00            (uncategorized)

MONTHLY PROGRESS:
...

Advanced Configuration

Platform-Specific Setup

Plaid Integration

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accounts:
  - name: "Chase Checking"
    source: plaid
    plaid:
      client_id_env: "PLAID_CLIENT_ID"
      secret_env: "PLAID_SECRET"
      access_token_env: "PLAID_ACCESS_TOKEN_CHASE"
    type: checking

Full Options Reference

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
schedule	string	"sunday-09:00"	Weekly snapshot delivery time
accounts	array	required	Bank account configurations
budget.monthly_total	number	required	Total monthly spending budget
budget.categories	object	{}	Category-specific budget amounts
savings_goals	array	[]	Savings goal targets and current amounts
flag_unusual	boolean	true	Flag unusual transactions

Core Concepts

Concept	Purpose	How It Works
Pace Tracking	Prevents end-of-month overspending	Compares % of budget spent vs % of month elapsed to predict overages
Anomaly Detection	Catches unusual charges early	Flags transactions above your threshold or from new merchants
Subscription Monitoring	Prevents subscription creep	Identifies new recurring charges by matching merchant patterns over 2+ months
Category Intelligence	Auto-categorizes spending	Matches merchant names to budget categories using known merchant databases

Architecture

Plaid/Teller API ──> Transaction Fetcher ──> Categorizer ──> Budget Tracker
                                                    |                |
  CSV Imports ───────> File Parser ──────────────────┘          Anomaly Detector

Workflow Examples

Scenario 1: Catching subscription creep

Input: New $14.99 charge from "STREAMING-SVC-NEW" not in known subscriptions Processing: Detects merchant not in the user's subscription history, flags as potential new recurring charge, and cross-references with similar charges in recent months. Output: Alert with merchant name, amount, and action prompt. If user confirms it is intentional, it gets added to known subscriptions. If not, user is prompted to cancel.

Scenario 2: End-of-month budget crunch

Input: Week 4 snapshot shows 92% of budget spent with 8 days remaining Processing: Identifies which categories are over-budget, calculates exact remaining daily budget, and suggests which categories have room to absorb overages. Output: Warning snapshot with "You have $400 remaining for 8 days ($50/day). Groceries and utilities are your only remaining essential spending. Dining and entertainment budgets are exhausted."

Best Practices

1. Review the snapshot every Sunday morning -- Financial awareness works best as a weekly ritual. Sunday gives you time to adjust plans before the week's spending begins..

2. Set category budgets based on 3-month actuals -- Do not guess. Run --analyze-history on your first setup to see actual spending by category. Set budgets 10% below actuals.

3. Act on flagged transactions within 24 hours -- Unusual transactions are only useful if you investigate quickly. A fraudulent charge is easier to dispute within days. An.

Common Issues

1. Plaid connection expires after 90 days -- Some banks require re-authentication periodically. When you see a "ITEM_LOGIN_REQUIRED" error, run `claude.

2. Transactions categorized incorrectly -- Use --recategorize "MERCHANT_NAME" groceries to manually override a category. The override persists for all future.

Privacy & Data Handling

Financial data requires the highest level of privacy protection. All transaction data is processed locally and stored encrypted in ~/.claude/data/financial-snapshot/ using your system keychain encryption. No financial data -- account balances, transactions, merchant names, or spending patterns -- is ever transmitted to any service beyond your authenticated banking API (Plaid/Teller). The skill maintains no server-side copy of your data.