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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, Savings) 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.

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. 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.

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 at the bottom ready for new entries.

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.