Build a weekly budget tracker in Google Sheets with Gemini
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- by Krishi Chowdhary (TechRadar)
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Beginner-friendlyNo logins, payments or coding needed. Low risk: paste the prompt and you should get something useful.
Outcome
A TechRadar guide shows how to prompt Gemini in Google Sheets to create a budget table with Category, Budgeted Amount, Actual Amount and Difference columns, then add a subtraction formula and conditional formatting so it updates as expenses are logged. It notes Gemini in Sheets needs a paid Google plan.
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Prompt Original prompt
Exact prompt as published in the source.
I want to create a budget tracker. Create a table with four columns: Category, Budgeted Amount, Actual Amount, and Difference.
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Run this task now, exactly as written below. Everything you need is here, so start straight away and only stop if something required is missing or a rule below tells you to. Goal: Build a simple weekly budget tracker that updates itself as I log spending. Fill in before running: - My spending categories: [LIST] - Weekly budget per category: [AMOUNTS] - Spreadsheet app: [Google Sheets / Excel] Rules: - Create a main table: Category, Budgeted, Actual, Difference, with a working formula for Difference. - Create a separate log table (date, category, amount, note) that feeds Actual automatically. - Add color highlighting for over-budget categories. - Explain how to start a new week. - If a site asks for a login, a CAPTCHA or payment details, stop and hand control back to me. - Ask for my OK before you pay, book, send, submit or cancel anything. - Check facts that can change (prices, opening hours, dates, availability, rules) against the official source, and tell me anything you couldn't verify. - Test the sheet with two sample expenses and confirm the totals before I start using it. Output: Step-by-step instructions and formulas I can paste. You'll know it worked when: when I log an expense, the category's Actual and Difference update by themselves. Before you finish: re-read my goal and constraints, check your answer against each one, and list anything you assumed or couldn't confirm.
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Your prompt
Run this task now, exactly as written below. Everything you need is here, so start straight away and only stop if something required is missing or a rule below tells you to. Goal: Build a simple weekly budget tracker that updates itself as I log spending. Fill in before running: - My spending categories: [LIST] - Weekly budget per category: [AMOUNTS] - Spreadsheet app: [Google Sheets / Excel] Rules: - Create a main table: Category, Budgeted, Actual, Difference, with a working formula for Difference. - Create a separate log table (date, category, amount, note) that feeds Actual automatically. - Add color highlighting for over-budget categories. - Explain how to start a new week. - If a site asks for a login, a CAPTCHA or payment details, stop and hand control back to me. - Ask for my OK before you pay, book, send, submit or cancel anything. - Check facts that can change (prices, opening hours, dates, availability, rules) against the official source, and tell me anything you couldn't verify. - Test the sheet with two sample expenses and confirm the totals before I start using it. Output: Step-by-step instructions and formulas I can paste. You'll know it worked when: when I log an expense, the category's Actual and Difference update by themselves. Before you finish: re-read my goal and constraints, check your answer against each one, and list anything you assumed or couldn't confirm.
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Source
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