Personal Finance Advisor

Overview

This project is a simple command-line Personal Finance Advisor written in Python. It helps you track spending, get basic budget insights, and view summaries by category.

Features

• Add spending transactions (date, category, amount, description)
• View all transactions in a table
• See total spending by category
• Get monthly budget advice (warns if you’re close to/exceeding your limit)
• Data saved in a basic CSV file (no external databases needed)

Technologies/Tools Used

• Python 3
• Python standard libraries:
  • csv (for saving/loading data)
  • datetime (for dates)
• No third-party libraries required

Steps to Install & Run the Project

1. Install Python 3.
2. Download the code (personal_finance_advisor.py) to a folder on your computer.
3. Open Terminal or Command Prompt and cd into that folder.
4. Run this command:

   python personal_finance_advisor.py
   

5. Follow the menu options in your terminal!

Instructions for Testing

• Use menu Option 1 to add several transactions with different categories and amounts.
• Use Option 2 to view your transaction table.
• Use Option 3 to see if the summary-by-category works.
• Use Option 4 to set a monthly budget and test if warnings work near/exceeding the limit.
• Check that transactions.csv is created next to your code file, and try opening it in Excel.

Screenshots