Personal Finance Tracker MCP Server
An MCP server that lets you log and query your own spending through natural conversation with Claude, instead of a spreadsheet or app.
What it does
You talk to Claude. Claude calls these tools against your local SQLite database:
| Tool | What it does | |------|-------------| | add_expense | Log a purchase — amount, category, description, date, source | | query_expenses | Filter expenses by date range and/or category | | monthly_summary | Total spend, breakdown by category, remaining budget | | update_expense | Fix a mis-logged expense by ID | | delete_expense | Remove an expense by ID | | search_expenses | Find expenses by description text | | list_categories | Show all categories you've used |
Monthly cap is set to $2,000 — change MONTHLY_CAP in src/index.ts to match yours.
Storage
SQLite, single file (expenses.db), zero setup. Schema is in schema.sql. The database file is gitignored — your spending data stays local.
Setup
npm install
npm run buildUse with Claude Desktop
Add to your Claude Desktop MCP config (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json):
{
"mcpServers": {
"finance-tracker": {
"command": "node",
"args": ["/absolute/path/to/finance-tracker-mcp/dist/index.js"]
}
}
}Restart Claude Desktop. Then just talk to it:
- "I spent $14.50 on lunch today"
- "How much have I spent this month?"
- "Show me all grocery expenses from last week"
- "Delete expense 7"
Design decisions
- SQLite over Postgres: this is a personal, local-only tool. One file, zero infrastructure, easy to back up.
- Free-text categories: no fixed enum. Your categories emerge from how you actually talk about spending.
list_categoriesshows what you've used so far. - Structured dates on the tool interface: the tool takes ISO dates (
YYYY-MM-DD), and the model handles the "last week" → date range translation. Keeps parsing logic out of the server. - Search tool for ambiguity: when you say "delete the coffee expense" and there are three,
search_expenseslets Claude show you the matches and ask which one.
Build Plan
See BUILD_PLAN.md for the phased plan and future ideas (budget alerts, recurring expenses, CSV import, multi-currency).
