Defend Your Budget Line by Line

When to use it

The user owns a budget and has been asked to cut it, or expects to be. They have the lines and a target, or a rough one. They need to walk into the meeting with a position: what they will give without a fight, what they will trade, what they will defend and with what consequence. One budget in, one position out.

Not for: building the budget in the first place, forecasting cash week by week (use the cash forecast skills), or arguing a personal pay matter. If the user has no line detail, this skill asks for it; it cannot classify a single total.

What it asks you

Ask for these in one message, numbered:

1. The budget lines, pasted as text: line name and annual amount. Monthly is fine if they say so.
2. The cut target: an amount or a percentage, and whether it is this year or next.
3. For each line, one phrase on what it buys and whether the money is already committed (signed contract, notice period, paid in advance).
4. Any line that brings money in or protects it (a system that generates bookings, a licence a customer requires).
5. Anything the user already knows is slack: unused subscriptions, overstock, a project that slipped.
6. Who decides, and what they have said they care about.

Work from what comes back. If a line's purpose is not given, classify it provisionally, write "purpose: not given" against it and put it in Questions. If the target is not given, build the position anyway and show the cumulative total of gives and trades so the user can read off any target. Never invent a contract term, a revenue figure or a consequence. A consequence that is not in the user's facts is written as a question.

What comes back

Plain text. Headings in capitals.

POSITION Budget total, target, and in one sentence how the target is reached (gives plus which trades) or how far short it falls.

GIVES Line, amount, one phrase why. Total.

TRADES Line, amount given, what you get in return, consequence if cut without the trade. In the order you offer them. Total.

PROTECTS Line, amount, the fact that protects it (term, requirement or arithmetic), consequence if cut. Total.

THE ARITHMETIC Lines sum. Gives total. Trades total. Target. Shortfall or headroom. In reserve: the trade you have not offered.

QUESTIONS Purposes not given, consequences you could not evidence, terms to check.

Next: one line naming the single most useful next step.

• 00_START_HERE.pdf: the two-minute set-up for each AI.
• 1 - Skill: budget-defence-line-by-line.zip, one upload to Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok or Microsoft 365 Copilot. It switches on by itself when this job comes up.
• 2 - Text file for any AI: the same Move as one .txt. Attach it to any chat, on any plan, and type "Follow this file".

It drafts, you read and send. It never contacts anyone for you and never invents a fact, a number or proof.

A Move is a single play. The whole function in a box is Cash Flow Planner, an agent pack with up to 8 skills.