Where does my money go each month?
Set the month and account
A monthly spending list shows which recorded payments make up your total. Write the first and last dates of the month on paper. Use the transaction dates printed on one account statement and keep its currency beside the heading. If the statement covers a different period, mark only the rows inside your chosen month. Keep the other rows outside this total.
Worked example with made-up figures
Repeating
- Fictional sample rent
- A$270.97 / week
- Telco One
- A$11.06 / week
- Fictional sample groceries
- A$9.65 / week
- Streamly
- A$3.16 / week
Together A$294.84 a week.
Get your own answer, first one freeGive each outgoing row a place
Draw columns for date, description, amount and group. Copy each outgoing payment once. Plain groups such as housing, food, travel, subscriptions and other make the list easy to read. Keep transfers between your own accounts in a separate column. A transfer records money moving between accounts; it does not by itself identify a purchase. Leave unclear descriptions in an unlabelled group.
Keep incoming money separate
Write pay, refunds and other incoming entries in another list. Where a refund clearly matches a purchase, show both amounts beside the same group, then subtract the refund for a separate net figure. Cash withdrawals can have their own group. A withdrawal shows cash leaving the account, while any later use of that cash needs its own record to explain it.
Example: made-up figures
Imagine housing payments of 800, food payments of 300, travel payments of 100 and subscriptions of 50. Their total is 1,250. A separate transfer of 200 to another account stays outside this spending total. A food refund of 20 makes net food spending 280 and the net total 1,230. Each number comes from a copied row in this fictional example.
Check the totals against the paper
Add each group down its column, then add the group totals across. Compare that answer with a second sum of the included outgoing rows. Tick each source row as it enters the list. Write the total of excluded transfers separately so the difference remains traceable. The finished page explains the spending visible in this account for this month, with page references beside the amounts.
Related questions
Axiolia reads the statement, payslip or bill you hand it and shows the same pattern in one view. Try it on a sample statement first, free, no email.