The 15-Minute Money Ritual: Getting In Sync With Your Spending

Sponsored by Monarch Money

This month, in partnership with our friends at Monarch Money, we're bringing you The 15-Minute Money Ritual: a four-part series to teach you how to take charge of your money without letting it consume your entire life. Each week, we’ll share one segment to help you refresh your money routine, without ever costing you more than 15 minutes of your precious time. (ICYMI: here is last week’s installment, all about curating a monthly money check-in you can easily stick to.)

This week: Identify ongoing spending patterns and problem areas.

There’s one really annoying thing about money: you can’t not spend it, but you also can’t spend too much. Tracking your spending to see where the heck your money is actually going each month is a crucial step in gaining control over your finances. You need to know:

• How much you’re actually spending in each category

• Whether that is eating into your ability to save for the long-term 

• When cutting back would be worth it, and when spending really does add to your life

If you’re constantly going over budget in your entertainment category, for instance, maybe the problem isn’t that you’re spending too much on concerts and other experiences that are genuinely meaningful to you. Maybe the problem is that you need to re-prioritize your spending so you actually have permission to spend on what matters to you. This week, it’s time to set up your next 15-minute money ritual: syncing up with your spending so you can adjust those priorities in line with your actual life.

so you actually have permission to spend on what matters to you. This week, it’s time to set up your next 15-minute money ritual: syncing up with your spending so you can adjust those priorities in line with your actual life. 

For the purposes of this ritual, don’t preemptively assign budget amounts to your different spending categories, even if you already technically have a budget in place. The goal is to get a clear-eyed look at what you’re actually spending, without any of the judgment that restrictive budgeting sometimes brings out of us. The numbers are just that, data — not a judgment call on your worth as a person. 

Of course, when you use a different credit card for grocery shopping, restaurant spending, and booking travel (we see you, points maximalist!), keeping track of all of your spending is a big task. Luckily, with Monarch, you can easily see all of your spending from every account in one place, without having to tag each expense. You set up your categories, and Monarch’s AI learns from you to organize your transactions and deliver the insights you need. Their reporting features are as fun to look at as they are powerful, including fan-favorite Sankey diagrams that visualize your spending data in the most digestible way possible. 

Monarch lets you slice and dice reports for insights that will help you make smart money moves, because once you know where your money is actually going, you can adjust accordingly in order to reach your goals. And as an added bonus, you can zoom out for the big spending picture, or zoom in on specific time frames, category-level spending, and more.

And right now, our readers can get 50% off with code TFD50 — click here to get started!

The point of seeing your spending from a big-picture perspective is to help give you clarity; maybe that twice-weekly pastry run isn’t what’s breaking the bank, after all. The more you approach your numbers from a place of gathering data rather than blaming and shaming, the better you’ll be able to reprioritize your goals from a neutral point of view. Next time, we’ll dive into our next 15-minute money ritual: tweaking your habits so your spending is in sync with your goals.