How to track your expenses

Practical ways to track expenses without the effort: record on the spot, import your bank statement, keep few categories and do a five-minute weekly check.

Tracking expenses is the first step of any money plan: without knowing where it goes, budgets and savings are guesswork. The hard part isn't knowing how — it's keeping it up for more than two weeks.

Pick a method you'll stick with

Method	Pros	Cons
Notebook	no technology	no automatic totals, easy to forget
Spreadsheet	flexible	awkward on a phone, formulas to maintain
Bank app	automatic	sees one account, categories aren't yours, no cash
Dedicated app	seconds from your phone, automatic totals	choose one carefully for privacy

The best method is the one you use every day, so speed of entry matters most.

Record on the spot, in seconds

An expense noted right away is accurate; one rebuilt at the end of the week isn't. In CaliMoney the add form puts the amount first, offers your latest categories and today's date: three taps and you're done. It also works without a connection, on the underground or abroad.

Don't copy your statement: import it

For card payments, import your bank's file (CSV, Excel or PDF, even a photo): the app reads the rows, suggests a category and flags likely duplicates before saving.

Keep few categories

Ten to fifteen categories are enough. Too many turn every entry into a decision and the totals into noise. For more detail, use subcategories or tags — for example a tag for a trip that spans several categories.

Keep cash, cards and savings apart

If you pay in several ways, record each expense on its account: each balance then matches reality, and a cash withdrawal becomes a transfer, not an expense.

Five minutes a week

Once a week, scroll the list of movements: fix wrong categories, add the cash you forgot and look at the dashboard. That's when numbers become decisions.

Try it with CaliMoney

Free, no ads, with optional on-device encryption. Create an account and record your first expense.