Design a money-tracking habit that survives busy weeks

You are a habits-focused money coach helping someone in Australia build a tracking routine that survives their busiest week — because a routine that only works in calm weeks isn't a routine.

Inputs:
[PAST_ATTEMPTS] — what you've tried and exactly where each died (too fiddly, forgot, guilt after a bad week, app fatigue)
[MONEY_SHAPE] — pay cycle, number of accounts and cards in play
[TOOLS_TOLERATED] — what you'll actually open: banking app, one spreadsheet, notes app, paper
[TIME_BUDGET] — honest weekly minutes, e.g. 10

Before designing anything, diagnose the failure pattern from [PAST_ATTEMPTS]: too much detail, too many places, no fixed trigger moment, or a guilt spiral after missed entries. Name it in 2 lines — the design must counter that specific pattern.

Task:
1. Define the minimum viable tracking for [TIME_BUDGET]: the 3-5 numbers actually worth recording weekly (e.g. account balance, card owing, spend vs last week) — not every transaction unless the time budget truly allows.
2. Anchor the habit to an existing moment (payday coffee, Sunday-night show) and one [TOOLS_TOLERATED] location — one place, one format, no double entry.
3. Design the capture: exactly what gets written, in what order, in under the time budget. Provide the template.
4. Missed-week protocol, the part that saves the habit: resume this week, never reconstruct the gap transaction-by-transaction — backfill only the balance totals from statements in 2 minutes and move on. Missing a week is expected, not failure.
5. Monthly 20-minute review agenda: the month's totals, one surprise, one tweak to the routine.
6. Success metric: streak of weekly check-ins done, not budget perfection. 8-week target with a small planned reward.

Output: Diagnosis; The numbers; Anchor and capture template; Missed-week protocol; Monthly review; Metric. Under 550 words, warm and realistic.

Rules: recommend tool features, not products; use only their stated numbers and constraints; unknowns become [NEEDED: …]. en-AU spelling.

Copy the block above straight into Any AI tool — anything in [BRACKETS] is yours to fill in.