How to track your spending: one month, real example

Sam

I don't spend on anything special. Rent, kindergarten, food, that's it. Yet every month the money's gone before payday and we finish on the credit card. Where does it go?

Alex Tutor

Let's not guess. First a quick test: how much do you think your family spent from 5 September to 4 October?

Sam

Rent 16,000, kindergarten 4,500, food maybe 10,000, plus bits and pieces. About 50,000? We earn 56,000 together, so it should fit.

You

Why from the 5th and not from 1 September?

Alex Tutor

Because Sam and his partner are both paid on the 5th. Track one full pay cycle, payday to payday: that's the stretch the money has to last. A calendar month would cut it in two.

And don't rebuild it from memory: it keeps big, rare payments and drops small daily ones. The bank remembers everything, so take the card history.

Sam

Done: 86 payments from our family account. Two minutes in the banking app.

Alex Tutor

Dataset · 86 rows

Sam's family account: every payment of one pay cycle

5 September to 4 October 2026, one row per payment, amounts in UAH. Both salaries arrive on the 5th; on that morning the account held 300 UAH.

Download CSV

Columns
date: Payment date
category: The bank's category, e.g. groceries, taxi, food_delivery
description: What the payment was for
amount_uah: Amount paid, UAH

Data

date	category	description	amount_uah
2026-09-05	rent	Flat rent	16000
2026-09-05	taxi	Taxi	250
2026-09-05	eating_out	Family dinner out	925
2026-09-06	kindergarten	Kindergarten fee	4500
2026-09-06	coffee	Coffee to go	65

Show 81 more rows

2026-09-07	utilities	Utilities	3350
2026-09-07	subscriptions	video streaming	199
2026-09-07	coffee	Coffee to go	60
2026-09-07	taxi	Taxi	170
2026-09-08	phone_internet	Phones and home internet	640
2026-09-08	groceries	Supermarket	960
2026-09-08	coffee	Coffee to go	70
2026-09-08	coffee	Coffee to go	85
2026-09-08	public_transport	Metro and bus	55
2026-09-08	public_transport	Metro and bus	35
2026-09-09	pharmacy	Pharmacy	640
2026-09-09	groceries	Supermarket	1120
2026-09-09	food_delivery	Food delivery	445
2026-09-10	subscriptions	music streaming	99
2026-09-10	coffee	Coffee to go	80
2026-09-10	coffee	Coffee to go	90
2026-09-10	food_delivery	Food delivery	360
2026-09-11	cash	Cash withdrawal	2000
2026-09-12	coffee	Coffee to go	95
2026-09-12	taxi	Taxi	200
2026-09-13	subscriptions	cloud storage	89
2026-09-13	coffee	Coffee to go	75
2026-09-13	coffee	Coffee to go	55
2026-09-14	installments	Laptop installment 4 of 10	1900
2026-09-14	groceries	Supermarket	1030
2026-09-14	groceries	Supermarket	830
2026-09-14	eating_out	Family dinner out	1365
2026-09-16	subscriptions	games subscription	249
2026-09-16	coffee	Coffee to go	80
2026-09-16	coffee	Coffee to go	70
2026-09-17	clothes	Child's autumn jacket	2300
2026-09-17	groceries	Supermarket	1015
2026-09-17	food_delivery	Food delivery	480
2026-09-17	taxi	Taxi	130
2026-09-17	public_transport	Metro and bus	40
2026-09-17	public_transport	Metro and bus	40
2026-09-17	public_transport	Metro and bus	50
2026-09-19	installments	Washing machine installment 2 of 6	1250
2026-09-19	subscriptions	fitness app	299
2026-09-19	groceries	Supermarket	1145
2026-09-19	coffee	Coffee to go	65
2026-09-20	groceries	Supermarket	950
2026-09-20	food_delivery	Food delivery	410
2026-09-20	public_transport	Metro and bus	30
2026-09-21	coffee	Coffee to go	75
2026-09-21	taxi	Taxi	175
2026-09-22	gifts	Birthday present	1200
2026-09-22	subscriptions	language app	229
2026-09-22	public_transport	Metro and bus	60
2026-09-24	groceries	Supermarket	820
2026-09-24	groceries	Supermarket	860
2026-09-25	card_interest	Credit card interest	1480
2026-09-25	subscriptions	news site	119
2026-09-25	groceries	Supermarket	1055
2026-09-25	taxi	Taxi	255
2026-09-25	taxi	Taxi	135
2026-09-26	pharmacy	Pharmacy	385
2026-09-27	food_delivery	Food delivery	345
2026-09-27	food_delivery	Food delivery	435
2026-09-27	taxi	Taxi	210
2026-09-28	taxi	Taxi	210
2026-09-28	taxi	Taxi	130
2026-09-28	eating_out	Family dinner out	1130
2026-09-29	coffee	Coffee to go	65
2026-09-29	coffee	Coffee to go	95
2026-09-29	food_delivery	Food delivery	525
2026-09-30	donations	Monthly donation	1000
2026-09-30	groceries	Supermarket	945
2026-09-30	groceries	Supermarket	665
2026-09-30	food_delivery	Food delivery	375
2026-10-01	groceries	Supermarket	1030
2026-10-01	coffee	Coffee to go	70
2026-10-01	food_delivery	Food delivery	470
2026-10-01	taxi	Taxi	200
2026-10-02	food_delivery	Food delivery	360
2026-10-02	taxi	Taxi	130
2026-10-02	eating_out	Family dinner out	925
2026-10-03	coffee	Coffee to go	60
2026-10-03	coffee	Coffee to go	65
2026-10-04	coffee	Coffee to go	75
2026-10-04	public_transport	Metro and bus	55

Before sorting anything, one number: the total. Add up the whole amount column.

Alex Tutor

Question 1

Use Sam's card history. How much did the family spend in total from 5 September to 4 October?

Your answer

Units: UAH (e.g. 48,500)

You

62,858 UAH. That's almost 13,000 more than Sam's guess, and more than the family earns.

Alex Tutor

Now the whole cycle. On payday morning the account held 300 UAH, then 31,000 + 25,000 = 56,000 came in. That's 56,300 to live on. Minus 62,858, the cycle ended 6,558 UAH short.

Alex Tutor

Balance at the end of each day, UAHStarts at 300 + 56,000 on 5 September; below zero from 29 September, the credit card covers the rest.

Chart data

Day	Balance
05.09	39,125
06.09	34,560
07.09	30,781
08.09	28,936
09.09	26,731

Show 25 more rows

10.09	26,102
11.09	24,102
12.09	23,807
13.09	23,588
14.09	18,463
15.09	18,463
16.09	18,064
17.09	14,009
18.09	14,009
19.09	11,250
20.09	9,860
21.09	9,610
22.09	8,121
23.09	8,121
24.09	6,441
25.09	3,397
26.09	3,012
27.09	2,022
28.09	552
29.09	-133
30.09	-3,118
01.10	-4,888
02.10	-6,303
03.10	-6,428
04.10	-6,558

It went below zero on 29 September, six days before payday. Everything after that went on the credit card.

Sam

So it's not one bad week at the end. We overspend all month and only notice on the 29th.

You

86 lines is a lot to read. How do we see where it went?

Alex Tutor

Group them. The bank already tagged each payment: 18 categories. That's plenty; by hand, 8–10 would do. You want to know where the money went, not which café.

Alex Tutor

Dataset · 18 rows

The same cycle, totalled by category

18 categories, 62,858 UAH in total. The kind column comes up in the next lesson.

Download CSV

Columns
category: The bank's category
kind: essential or flexible
total_uah: Total for the cycle, UAH

Data

category	kind	total_uah
rent	essential	16000
utilities	essential	3350
phone_internet	essential	640
kindergarten	essential	4500
groceries	essential	12425

Show 13 more rows

public_transport	essential	365
pharmacy	essential	1025
installments	essential	3150
card_interest	essential	1480
coffee	flexible	1395
food_delivery	flexible	4205
taxi	flexible	2195
subscriptions	flexible	1283
clothes	flexible	2300
gifts	flexible	1200
eating_out	flexible	4345
donations	flexible	1000
cash	flexible	2000

Alex Tutor

Question 2

Look at the totals by category. Which category took the most money after rent?

Choose one answerKindergartenEating outGroceriesClothes (the jacket)

Sam

Groceries at 12,425, fine, there are three of us. What hurt this month was our kid's autumn jacket: 2,300 in one go. That's our leak.

Alex Tutor

It's the biggest single flexible purchase, so memory kept it. Now count what nobody remembers. Food delivery: 10 orders, 4,205 UAH. Taxi: 12 rides, 2,195. Coffee to go: 19 cups, 1,395.

You

Delivery and taxi alone come to 6,400. That's almost three jackets.

Alex Tutor

Add four family dinners out: 4,345. None felt big, at 925 to 1,365 each. A big purchase is one decision you notice; a habit is dozens you don't.

This isn't a verdict on delivery or coffee; they may be worth it to Sam. The point is to see their real size before deciding.

Alex Tutor

Question 3

Put these categories in order by how much the family spent on them in the cycle, largest first.

Tap an item, then tap where it should go. You can also drag or use the arrows.

Sam

The jacket won't repeat next month, though. The delivery will.

Alex Tutor

Exactly. A seasonal purchase can be planned for by setting a little aside monthly. Habits repeat every cycle, so they shape the total.

You

So the question isn't "what was the biggest payment?" but "what adds up to the most?"

Alex Tutor

Yes. Rank categories by their totals, not by the size of single payments.

Alex Tutor

Question 4

True or false: the child's jacket (2,300 UAH) was the family's biggest flexible leak this cycle.

TrueFalse

Sam

Honestly, I won't fill in a spreadsheet every evening. I tried once. It lasted four days.

Alex Tutor

You don't need to. Once a cycle, on payday, total the card history by category. Twenty minutes a month.

One blind spot: cash. Sam withdrew 2,000 on 11 September, and nobody knows what it bought. When you pay cash, add a line to a phone note.

You

And the categories: keep the bank's or make my own?

Alex Tutor

Keep the bank's, fix the wrong ones, merge the tiny ones. Don't split further: 40 categories turn tracking into a hobby nobody keeps up.

Alex Tutor

Question 5

Which of these rules make tracking useful and easy to keep up? Choose all that apply.

Choose all that applyTrack from payday to payday, not by calendar monthSplit spending into 40 detailed categories to see every detailTake the numbers from the card history rather than from memoryTrack only purchases above 1,000 UAH, since small ones don't matterNote what each cash withdrawal was spent onTotal the cycle by category once, on payday

Sam

OK, I'm convinced. What exactly do I watch next cycle, so we don't end up 6,500 short again?

You

Delivery and taxi, for a start. And whatever the cash goes on.

Alex Tutor

Good start. One more marker: the day the balance hits zero. If it moves from the 29th towards payday, something is working.

Write it for Sam in a few sentences: the period, what to track, which numbers to watch and why.

Alex Tutor

Question 6Short answer · AI-checked task

Sam asks: "What exactly do I track next cycle?" Write him a short plan (3–5 sentences): the period, where the numbers come from, which categories and numbers to watch, and why. Use this cycle's figures.

Write your answer and get a score with feedback from our AI reviewer.

Log in to get AI feedback

Alex Tutor

Next time we turn these totals into a spending plan: essentials, saving and money for the things you enjoy.

Alex Tutor

That’s the lesson. You answered every task — nicely done.

Next lesson: Needs, wants and fun money: a spending plan