A monthly money review in fifteen minutes
Published
The most useful financial habit is also one of the smallest: look at last month, once, on purpose. Fifteen minutes is enough if you know what you are looking for.
The agenda
1. The total (two minutes). What did you spend, and how does it compare with the month before? You are not judging it, just noticing the direction.
2. The top three categories (three minutes). Most of your money goes to a handful of places. Are those the places you would choose?
3. Anything unexpected (four minutes). Skim the largest individual expenses and anything that made you blink. A forgotten annual charge or a duplicate is far cheaper to catch in a month than in a year.
4. What is coming (three minutes). Renewals, a trip, a bill that lands once a quarter. Knowing about next month's big items now means they are never a surprise.
5. One adjustment (three minutes). Change exactly one thing: nudge a budget, cancel one subscription, decide to capture receipts at lunch. One change a month adds up quickly; ten at once changes nothing.
Make it easy
The review is only as quick as your data is ready. If expenses are captured as you go, the dashboard shows you the total, the split by category and the trend in one screen, and the monthly summary does the first pass for you.
Pick a slot and keep it
First weekend of the month, with a coffee, is a good slot. The details do not matter; the repetition does.