Lunch Money
Import transactions and maintain a transparent personal ledger with rules and reports
The core loop is buildable, but a dependable replacement becomes a real weekend or multi-day project. For Lunch Money, import transactions and maintain a transparent personal ledger with rules and reports. The hard boundary is bank sync, multi-currency support, api, community, and hosted convenience, plus financial integrations, compliance, and trust.
Build verification: not recorded. How we judge buildability
What you give up
- bank sync, multi-currency support, API, community, and hosted convenience
- direct bank feeds
- tax filing guarantees
- payroll and payments
- accountant ecosystem and support
Why people still pay
People still pay for Lunch Money because people pay because accurate money records and dependable institution connections are worth more than the visible charts. The recurring cost buys import normalization, reconciliation, rule drift, exchange rates, backups, audit trails, tax changes, bank APIs, and support, not just the visible interface.
Your build guide
The stack, security requirements, and agent rules for a focused replacement.
Before you start
- Runtime and tools: TypeScript, React, Node, SQLite and decimal.js for explicit decimal calculations.
- Before starting: A representative CSV with known totals, currency and date conventions, and an agreed calculation specification.
Use these project rules and optional skill references alongside the prompt. Review each skill before adding it to your agent; the AGENTS.md export includes the same guidance.
Project rule — domain: Store Account, ImportBatch, Transaction, Split and RuleVersion; split amounts sum exactly to the original and transfers are paired rather than counted as income/expense twice.
Project rule — scope and recovery: Preserve statement rows and explain date/currency conventions. No bank-login scraping or investment recommendations; category suggestions must not rewrite historical records silently.
Project rule — acceptance: Import the same statement twice, split a grocery/cashback purchase and pair an account transfer; totals reconcile and duplicates remain reviewable.
Project rule — delivery: document real setup commands and permissions; do not claim a build, accuracy level, performance result or security certification that has not been demonstrated.
Recommended skill: web-design-guidelines — review keyboard access, focus, validation, error recovery and the readable work/review interface or HTML report. Follow the maintainer's installation instructions and match its requirements to the chosen runtime.
Recommended skill: sharp-edges — review configuration and API defaults against the app-specific invariants and recovery boundaries above; this is not a security certification. Follow the maintainer's installation instructions and match its requirements to the chosen runtime.
Implementation plan
Phase 1
Pin the working slice and create its example input: Import bank-export transactions, review categorization rules, split mixed purchases and reconcile monthly balances without connecting money-moving APIs. Confirm setup: A representative CSV with known totals, currency and date conventions, and an agreed calculation specification.
Phase 2
Implement persistence and write-time invariants before decorating the UI: Store Account, ImportBatch, Transaction, Split and RuleVersion; split amounts sum exactly to the original and transfers are paired rather than counted as income/expense twice.
Phase 3
Connect the working view to real saved state. Preserve imported source rows and units, use decimal arithmetic with stated rounding, and retain correction history. Missing values are unknown rather than zero; reports describe records and assumptions rather than giving advice.
Phase 4
Expose the app-specific limits and recovery path in context: Preserve statement rows and explain date/currency conventions. No bank-login scraping or investment recommendations; category suggestions must not rewrite historical records silently.
Phase 5
Walk through this concrete acceptance case and preserve its exported evidence: Import the same statement twice, split a grocery/cashback purchase and pair an account transfer; totals reconcile and duplicates remain reviewable. Finish the README and backup/restore instructions; report unfinished capabilities explicitly.
Build the following focused alternative to Lunch Money. This is a deliberately limited personal or small-team substitute, not parity with the paid service. WORKING SLICE Import bank-export transactions, review categorization rules, split mixed purchases and reconcile monthly balances without connecting money-moving APIs. SETUP AND ARCHITECTURE Use TypeScript, React, Node, SQLite and decimal.js for explicit decimal calculations. Prerequisites: A representative CSV with known totals, currency and date conventions, and an agreed calculation specification. Before integrating anything, record actual versions and permissions, plus model files or provider limits only where used, in the README; make unavailable dependencies visible rather than simulating success. DOMAIN MODEL AND INVARIANTS Store Account, ImportBatch, Transaction, Split and RuleVersion; split amounts sum exactly to the original and transfers are paired rather than counted as income/expense twice. IMPLEMENTATION CONTRACT Preserve imported source rows and units, use decimal arithmetic with stated rounding, and retain correction history. Missing values are unknown rather than zero; reports describe records and assumptions rather than giving advice. Provide an input/setup view, the main work view, and a review/export view appropriate to this workflow. Preserve the last saved state if a job or save fails. Include empty, loading, permission-denied, partial and retryable-error states. Log identifiers and error categories without secret values or unnecessary private content. APP-SPECIFIC BOUNDARY AND RECOVERY Preserve statement rows and explain date/currency conventions. No bank-login scraping or investment recommendations; category suggestions must not rewrite historical records silently. ACCEPTANCE SCENARIO Import the same statement twice, split a grocery/cashback purchase and pair an account transfer; totals reconcile and duplicates remain reviewable. Also reopen the app after an interrupted operation, confirm the saved record/export remains inspectable, and document the recovery action. These are implementation acceptance requirements, not a claim that this guide has been tested. DELIVERY Deliver a runnable repository with migrations or project-format versioning, a non-sensitive example, environment/permission setup, the exact manual acceptance steps, and a backup/export-and-restore walkthrough. Implement the working slice before optional integrations; list any deferred paid-product capabilities honestly. Do not add capabilities outside the working slice just to resemble the original product. PROJECT RULES FOR AGENTS.md Keep the domain invariants above executable at the write boundary. Propose scope changes before adding providers or permissions. Never fabricate source evidence, publish results, identity matches or successful delivery. Preserve user originals and require an explicit confirmation for destructive changes or external publication.
$ open in your agent (prompt prefilled, you press enter), copy the prompt or copy or download AGENTS.md
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Alternatives to building your own
all 5 free alternatives to Lunch Money →· no votes, no pay-to-list · just what's real
Lunch Money pricing
| plan | monthly | annual (per mo) | what you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| monthly subscription | $10 | — | All product features; 30-day trial; price locked for life |
| annual subscription | — | $8.33 | All product features; user can set annual price, displayed default $100/year; 30-day trialAnnual amount is user-selectable; $100/year is the displayed default, not a hard fixed price. |
free tierno free tier; 30-day trial with no credit card
billingmonthly + annual (annual price is user-set; displayed default $100/year)
hidden costsAnnual customers can choose their own price; organization pricing is separate. Pausing converts unused time into account credit.
pricing sources checked 2026-08-13 · pricing source ↗
Questions about Lunch Money
Can you build your own Lunch Money with AI?
Partly. The core loop is buildable, but a dependable replacement becomes a real weekend or multi-day project. For Lunch Money, import transactions and maintain a transparent personal ledger with rules and reports. The hard boundary is bank sync, multi-currency support, api, community, and hosted convenience, plus financial integrations, compliance, and trust.
What does the Lunch Money build prompt cover?
The prompt starts with this scope: Import bank-export transactions, review categorization rules, split mixed purchases and reconcile monthly balances without connecting money-moving APIs. Full-product capabilities excluded from the comparison include: bank sync, multi-currency support, API, community, and hosted convenience; direct bank feeds; tax filing guarantees. Follow the implementation plan and its prerequisites before expanding the build.
How do I use the prompt, AGENTS.md and agent skills?
Start with the Lunch Money prerequisites and stack, then copy the prompt into your coding agent. Save the project rules as AGENTS.md in the project root. Linked skills are optional packages or source instructions for specific tasks; review their current contents and install only those matching the chosen stack. A skill does not supply API credentials or verify the finished app.
How long will this Lunch Money project take?
The catalogue estimate is multi-day for the limited scope. Setup, integration approvals, debugging, deployment and ongoing maintenance can add time. This is an estimate, not a delivery guarantee.
What would I give up by replacing Lunch Money?
bank sync, multi-currency support, API, community, and hosted convenience; direct bank feeds; tax filing guarantees; payroll and payments; accountant ecosystem and support. People still pay for Lunch Money because people pay because accurate money records and dependable institution connections are worth more than the visible charts. The recurring cost buys import normalization, reconciliation, rule drift, exchange rates, backups, audit trails, tax changes, bank APIs, and support, not just the visible interface.
What price is this guide comparing against?
The recorded Lunch Money plan is $10/mo (monthly), checked 2026-07-31. Check the linked pricing source before buying. Building your own also has hosting, API and maintenance costs; the recorded amount is not a guaranteed saving.
What can I use instead of building Lunch Money?
Actual Budget: A transparent ledger with imports, rules and reports on your own disk; automatic bank sync is optional. Firefly III: A meticulous imported ledger with rules and reports in Docker; powerful, private and willing to teach accounting words. Wealthfolio: Transactions, rules, spending reports and net worth on your device; automatic account sync is paid. Compare all listed options at https://howtovibecodeit.dev/lunch-money/alternatives. Check each option's license, hosting needs and feature limits.