/finance quick — 60-Second Financial Snapshot

DISCLAIMER: For educational/informational purposes only. Not financial advice.

Purpose

Deliver a high-signal financial health scorecard in under 60 seconds without launching the full 5-agent analysis. Use this when the user wants a quick read on where they stand before committing to a deeper audit.

When To Trigger

• User types /finance quick
• User asks "how am I doing financially?", "what's my financial health?", "quick check on my finances"
• User wants a baseline before deciding to run /finance analyze

DO NOT Launch Subagents

This skill must complete in a single response after collecting inputs. No parallel agents. No external API calls. All math is done inline by Claude.

Required Inputs

Ask the user for these six numbers in a single prompt. Accept rough estimates — precision is not required for a snapshot.

1. Monthly take-home income (after-tax dollars hitting their account)
2. Monthly expenses (rent/mortgage + utilities + food + transport + everything else)
3. Total liquid savings (checking + savings + brokerage cash, NOT retirement accounts)
4. Total debt (credit cards + student loans + auto + mortgage balance)
5. Current age
6. Target retirement age

If the user only provides partial data, compute what you can and flag missing fields in the output.

Calculations

1. Savings Rate

savings_rate = (monthly_income - monthly_expenses) / monthly_income * 100

Benchmarks:

• 20%+ → Excellent
• 15-19% → Good
• 10-14% → Fair
• 5-9% → Weak
• <5% → Critical

2. Debt-to-Income Ratio (DTI)

monthly_debt_payments = estimate as ~2% of total_debt (rough proxy)
DTI = monthly_debt_payments / monthly_income * 100

Benchmarks:

• <15% → Excellent
• 15-28% → Healthy
• 28-36% → Manageable
• 36-43% → Stressed
• >43% → Critical

3. Emergency Fund Coverage

months_covered = total_savings / monthly_expenses

Benchmarks:

• 6+ months → Excellent
• 3-5.9 months → Good
• 1-2.9 months → Weak
• <1 month → Critical

4. Retirement On-Track Status

Use the rule-of-thumb multiplier of current annual income by age:

• Age 30 → 1x income saved
• Age 35 → 2x income
• Age 40 → 3x income
• Age 45 → 4x income
• Age 50 → 6x income
• Age 55 → 7x income
• Age 60 → 8x income
• Age 67 → 10x income

Compare user's actual retirement savings (if provided; otherwise assume liquid savings as a floor) to the age benchmark. Compute years until retirement = targetretirementage - current_age.

5. Composite Quick Score (0-100)

quick_score = (savings_rate_score + dti_score + emergency_score + retirement_score) / 4

Each subscore is 0-100 based on the benchmarks above.

Grade:

• 85-100 → A
• 70-84 → B
• 55-69 → C
• 40-54 → D
• <40 → F

Output Format

Keep output under 40 lines total. Use plain ASCII (no markdown tables for the terminal version, but include a compact table format).

================================================
  60-SECOND FINANCIAL SNAPSHOT
================================================

Financial Health: [Grade] ([score]/100)
Life Stage: [Early/Mid/Pre-Retirement/etc]

CORE METRICS
- Savings Rate:        [X]%   [Excellent/Good/Fair/Weak/Critical]
- Debt-to-Income:      [X]%   [status]
- Emergency Fund:      [X.X] months   [status]
- Retirement Track:    [On / Behind / Critically Behind]

TOP 3 PRIORITY ACTIONS
1. [Highest impact action — specific dollar amount + this week]
2. [Second priority — specific action]
3. [Third priority — specific action]

KEY NUMBER TO IMPROVE FIRST
[The single metric that will move the score most]

================================================
Run `/finance analyze` for full multi-agent analysis
DISCLAIMER: For educational/informational purposes
only. Not financial advice.
================================================

Priority Action Logic

Rank actions by which metric is weakest:

• If emergency fund < 1 month → Top action: "Build emergency fund to $X (1 month minimum) before any other moves"
• If DTI > 43% → Top action: "Aggressive debt paydown — list highest APR debt first, target $X extra/month"
• If savings rate < 5% → Top action: "Audit top 3 expense categories — find $X cuttable this month"
• If retirement critically behind → Top action: "Open or increase retirement contribution by $X/month (target 15% of gross income)"
• If high-interest debt exists (assume credit cards if total_debt > 0 and user has any reported) → "Pay down highest-APR debt before incremental investing"

If all four metrics are healthy, surface optimization actions:

• "Increase retirement contribution to capture full employer match"
• "Shift emergency fund to high-yield savings (4-5% APY vs 0.01%)"
• "Diversify beyond cash — start dollar-cost averaging into index funds"

Example Walkthrough

User inputs:

• Income: $7,500/mo
• Expenses: $6,200/mo
• Savings: $8,000
• Debt: $32,000 (mostly student loans)
• Age: 31
• Target retirement: 65

Computed:

• Savings rate: 17.3% → Good
• DTI: ~8.5% → Excellent
• Emergency fund: 1.29 months → Weak
• Retirement: 34 years to retirement, $8K saved, benchmark at 31 is ~$90K → Critically Behind

Score: (75 + 95 + 35 + 25) / 4 = 57.5 → C

Top 3 actions:

1. Build emergency fund from $8K to $18,600 (3 months) — redirect $1,000/mo for 11 months
2. Open Roth IRA, contribute $583/mo ($7,000/yr max) starting this month
3. Refinance/consolidate student loans if APR > 6% — could save $X/year

Edge Cases

• User provides no debt → Skip DTI scoring, weight others equally
• User is retired → Replace retirement track with withdrawal sustainability (4% rule check)
• User is under 25 → Use lower retirement benchmarks (0.5x at 25); emphasize starting now
• User has very high income (>$300K/yr) → Add note: tax-advantaged accounts may be capped; mention backdoor Roth, mega-backdoor, HSA
• User declines to share numbers → Offer 3 hypothetical scenarios (struggling / average / strong) and let them self-identify

Hand-Off

End every snapshot with the line:

Run /finance analyze for the full 5-agent deep dive, or /finance debt / /finance retirement for focused work.

Tone

Direct. Quantitative. No hedging language like "you might consider." Say "do X this week" with specific dollar amounts. Acknowledge wins ("17% savings rate is above the US median") before flagging gaps.

DISCLAIMER: For educational/informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Consult a licensed financial advisor, CPA, or tax professional before making major financial decisions.