Today I was wondering how much I might spend before my next paycheck comes through ~Sept 21st so that I would know how much was safe to transfer to savings.
I used the Tiller Claude Connector to figure this out.
Here’s my prompt:
Based on my spending last month in the Foundation Budget sheet in Tiller, how much more would I expect to need to spend this month before Sept 21 based on upcoming bills and normal day to day spending (e.g. groceries, etc)?
And here’s what it came up with:
Recurring bills likely due before Sept 21 (not yet posted):
Bill
Amount
Expected due
Utilities (French Broad EMC)
$110.10
~Sept 12
Ladder Life Insurance
$32.96
~Sept 20
SoFi Plus subscription
$10.00
~Sept 11
Subtotal
≈ $153
(AT&T cell phone ~$76 still a wildcard — may land right at or just after Sept 21.)
Normal day-to-day spending, remaining days before Sept 21:
Groceries: ~$100 (your estimate — updated from the festival-trip-inflated figure)
Restaurants: ~$45–50
Gas: ~$25–30
Snacks/Coffee: ~$15–20
Household: ~$10–20
“Maggie” discretionary: ~$40–75
Day-to-day subtotal: roughly $235–295
Total expected additional spend before Sept 21: roughly $390–450, plus the AT&T bill (~$76) if it lands before the cutoff, bringing it to as much as ~$465–525.
I had to make a few corrections to the groceries assumptions because of higher spend in prep for a festival over Labor Day weekend, but with that context and its corrected estimates, I think this is pretty decent. Of course being that my spreadsheet is the source of truth and I can easily verify its accuracy, I did a quick scan of my monthly budget sheet to make sure it lines up.
This gives me more confidence about how much I can put aside in my HYS account before my next paycheck.
What’s a prompt you’re using to have AI help you answer a question?
now that we’re past that date and my last paycheck, can you do a review of this sheet again to check in on your forecast and whether it hit the mark or where it was off?
And Claude shared:
Pulled the actual Sept 9–21 transactions to check the forecast against reality. Here’s how it shook out:
Bills — mostly on target:
Bill
Forecast
Actual
Notes
Utilities (French Broad EMC)
$110.10
$132.43
Landed Sept 11 as expected, just ~$22 higher than August
Ladder Life Insurance
$32.96
$32.96
Exact match, Sept 21
SoFi Plus
$10.00
$10.00
Exact match, Sept 11
AT&T cell
~$76 (flagged as borderline)
$77.17
Landed Sept 22 — just missed the cutoff as predicted
The bills side was the strong part of the forecast — timing and amounts were close to spot-on.
Day-to-day — mixed, and mostly in the other direction:
Category
Forecast
Actual
Groceries
~$100
$164.84 (over)
Restaurants
~$45–50
$63.59 (a bit over)
Gas
~$25–30
$0 in-window (hit Sept 22, just after cutoff)
Snacks/Coffee
~$15–20
$0
Household
~$10–20
$0
Maggie
~$40–75
$0
So the “regulars” mostly didn’t fire in this window (no snacks/coffee, no household, no Maggie spend logged), while groceries ran higher than the revised $100 estimate — two trips totaling $164.84 rather than one ~$100 trip.
The big miss: an unplanned trip.
Sept 14–15 shows ~$1,025 in “Adventure” category charges [goes on to describe charges…]. That’s not something either of us had visibility into from August’s pattern, so it wasn’t in any version of the forecast. There’s also some smaller unplanned spend: Gifts ($53.88), a Entertainment charge ($26.75), a WS Household chimney inspection ($49), and outdoor gear/fitness charges (~$79).
Bottom line: the recurring-bills piece of the forecast held up well. The day-to-day estimate slightly underestimated groceries/restaurants but overestimated snacks/household/Maggie (roughly a wash). The real driver of the gap between forecast (~$390–450) and actual spend (~$1,638) was the unplanned trip — about $1,025 of spending with no forecast precedent. Worth flagging for next time: is this trip a one-off, or should “Adventure” become a category I ask about when reviewing upcoming spend?
