Build Your Money Command Center
Why money gets its own Project.
Family Manager knows your family. Home Operations knows your house. Money gets its own dedicated Project for one reason that matters: privacy isolation.
Cowork's memory is scoped per Project. What it knows about your finances stays in this Project — it doesn't leak into a casual dinner-planning ask in Family Manager. Project files stay separated on your computer too. The result: one deliberate place for money, instead of money context showing up everywhere.
This is also the only Project in the course where the rules about what goes in are non-negotiable. Cowork is useful for the management and awareness layer — what's coming due, what you forgot you're paying for, what monthly patterns look like. It doesn't need (and shouldn't have) the keys to actually move money. Those stay at your bank.
What goes in. What stays out.
Two simple lists. Read both before you build the reference file in the next screen.
Never put these in this Project
- Full account numbers (anything beyond the last 4 digits)
- Social Security numbers / Tax IDs
- Full credit card numbers, expiration dates, or CVVs
- Passwords, PINs, or any login credential
- Full routing numbers
- Bank security questions or their answers
These belong in your password manager (1Password, Bitwarden, Apple Keychain, etc.) — not anywhere Cowork can read them.
These are fine
- Last-4 digits of accounts for identification ("Chase checking, last-4 1234")
- Provider names ("Chase checking," "Visa," "electric bill," "Netflix")
- Rough monthly amounts and due dates ("electric: ~$120/mo, due around the 15th")
- Subscription names, costs, and billing cycle
- Annual financial rhythms (when taxes get filed, when bonuses arrive, when tuition payments are due)
- Budget categories and rough targets
- Financial goals if you want Cowork to help track progress
The principle: Cowork sees enough to help you stay aware. It doesn't see enough to actually access anything.
Create the Project and build the reference file.
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Create the Project
Cowork tab → Projects → + → Start from scratch. Name: Money Command Center. Save location: ~/Documents/Claude/Projects/Money Command Center/. Skip the instructions and files. Click Create.
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Run the Money Reference interview
Inside the new Project, send the prompt below. The privacy guardrails are baked into the prompt itself — Cowork will skip anything sensitive and prompt you only for the safe-to-share parts.
Cowork interviews you, asking only for what's safe to share, and stopping you if you accidentally start to include something that doesn't belong. The resulting file is enough context for Cowork to be useful in this Project — and nothing more.
Update it whenever life changes.
New job → new payroll schedule. New subscription → add it. Closed an account → remove it. Tell Cowork what changed and it updates the reference file. Same pattern as every other reference file in the course.
What's coming in the rest of the module.
Project's set up. Now the rest of the module puts it to work.
The next three lessons
- The Monthly Money Scan — Cowork looks across the month, finds subscriptions you forgot you're paying for, flags spending patterns, surfaces what's worth dealing with. The cool-win of this module.
- Bills, Renewals & Subscriptions — the workflow for what's coming due, what's about to auto-renew, and how to decide what to keep, cancel, or dispute.
- Sunday Money Reset — short weekly look at where money sat this week, parallel to the Sunday Household Reset.
Next: The Monthly Money Scan.
The "wait, I'm still paying for that?" moment.
Continue to The Monthly Money Scan →