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Vibe Coding a Budget Tracker in Excel with Claude Code

Vibe coding is like having a conversation with your computer - you describe the outcome, Claude Code builds it, you test and refine. It’s not magic; it’s a new way to work where you guide the vision and AI handles the spreadsheet mechanics: formulas, formatting, and charts. This tutorial walks you through building a real multi-sheet budget tracker using nothing but natural language requests.

Key Concepts

What You’ll Need

Step 1: Create New GitHub Repository

You now have a local Git repository and a backup on GitHub.

Step 2: Open the Project in VS Code

Step 3: Start Claude Code

claude

Claude Code is now running and ready for your requests.

Step 4: First Vibe - Build the Income and Expenses Sheets

Instead of building a spreadsheet cell by cell, just describe what you want.

Create a spreadsheet called budget.xlsx with two sheets: "Income" and "Expenses". Income should have columns for Source, Month, and Amount, with 3 example income sources across 2 months. Expenses should have columns for Category, Month, and Amount, with 6 example categories (like Rent, Groceries, Transportation, Utilities, Entertainment, Phone) across the same 2 months. Add a Total row at the bottom of each sheet using SUM formulas.

Save your progress: Ask Claude to commit using Git, or do this yourself from GitHub Desktop:

Commit these changes.

Step 5: Second Vibe - Add a Summary Sheet

Before building charts, tie the two sheets together.

Add a third sheet called "Summary" to budget.xlsx. It should show Total Income, Total Expenses, and Net Savings (Income minus Expenses), each computed with formulas that reference the Income and Expenses sheets - not hardcoded numbers. Below that, add a small table showing Income and Expenses for each month, also using formulas.

Save your progress: Ask Claude to commit, or use GitHub Desktop.

Step 6: Third Vibe - Add Charts

Numbers are useful, but charts tell the story at a glance.

Add a pie chart to the Expenses sheet showing each category's total share of spending, with one slice per category (both months combined). Add a bar chart to the Summary sheet comparing Total Income vs Total Expenses for each month.

Step 7: Fourth Vibe - Highlight Over-Budget Categories

Make problems visible at a glance instead of hunting through numbers.

On the Expenses sheet, add conditional formatting so any expense over $500 in a single month is highlighted in red, and anything under $100 is highlighted in green. Don't color the Total row.

If something doesn’t look right, copy what you see and describe it to Claude to fix.

Step 8: Fifth Vibe - Add a Category Dropdown

Make the sheet easier to extend without typos.

Add data validation to the Category column in the Expenses sheet so it only accepts values from a dropdown list of the existing categories, plus "Other". Add two blank rows just above the Total row ready for new entries, and make sure the Total, the Summary formulas, the pie chart totals (with an "Other" slice) and the color rules include them. Leave the empty cells uncolored.

Step 9: Review and Commit

Before committing, review what Claude built.

Add charts, conditional formatting, and category dropdown to budget tracker

You’ve saved a full working version of your budget tracker!

Step 10: Iterate and Improve

Vibe coding shines when you iterate. Try adding features by describing them:

Example requests to Claude:

After each successful feature:

Key principles:

Each time, follow the pattern: describe → check the file → iterate → commit.

Next Steps

Troubleshooting

Workflow Overview

This tutorial combined several tools into one workflow:

The magic isn’t any single tool - it’s how vibe coding lets you describe what you want and iterate rapidly. You went from an empty folder to a working, chart-filled budget tracker without writing a single formula by hand.

Everyday Workflow

After this initial setup, your daily vibe coding routine becomes:

  1. Open VS Code - Open your project folder
  2. Start Claude Code - Type claude in the terminal
  3. Describe your goal - “Add a feature that…” or “Fix the row where…”
  4. Check the file - Open it in the Spreadsheet Viewer or in Excel/LibreOffice
  5. Iterate or commit - If something’s off, describe the fix; if it works, commit with GitHub Desktop
  6. Push regularly - Click Push origin to back up to GitHub

The more you practice, the better you get at describing what you want. Vibe coding is a skill - you learn what kinds of descriptions work best and how to break big spreadsheet ideas into testable pieces.

Created by Steven Ge on September 21, 2026.