Cursor usage plan — flow overview

Five phases: Input → Check → Allocate → Plan → Optional

Cursor Ultra gives you a fixed $400 budget each billing period. It resets on a specific day (the 17th in my case)—use it or lose it. Without tracking, you either burn through it early or leave budget unused.

I built cursor_usage_plan—shell scripts and markdown templates to plan usage across projects. It's a template repo: clone it, configure your projects, adapt the scripts.

The Two-Document Workflow

	projects.md	plans/YYYY-MM.md
Purpose	Allocation: target % per project	This period's wishlist + schedule
Scripts	estimate-budget.sh	estimate-plan.sh

The Five Phases

Phase 1: Input
Export usage CSV from Cursor dashboard, then:
./scripts/import-usage-from-csv.sh export.csv Writes USED_DOLLARS to config/usage.env.

Phase 2: Check
See what's left:
./scripts/usage-remaining.sh Shows: used $, remaining $, % left, ~features remaining.

Phase 3: Allocate
Set target % in projects.md, then:
./scripts/estimate-budget.sh Keep 10–15% unassigned as buffer.

Phase 4: Plan
Create monthly plan with wishlist (P0/P1/P2 priorities):
./scripts/estimate-plan.sh plans/2026-02.md Output: "Fits in $400: Yes/No". Drop P2 items until it fits.

Phase 5: Optional
Budget expires on reset day. Use leftover $:
./scripts/update-embabel-low-effort-issues.sh Note: Embabel scripts are examples—adapt for your projects.

Configuration

MONTHLY_BUDGET_DOLLARS=400 BUDGET_ROLLOVER_DAY=17 DOLLARS_PER_FEATURE=20

Tips

• Plan in $ — Estimate each feature to sum to ~$400
• Check weekly — Run usage-remaining.sh; if high, add work
• Keep buffer — Reserve 10–15% for ad-hoc
• End-of-period — Burn remaining $ before reset

Source: github.com/jmjava/cursor_usage_plan