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Review Your Spending

This is where we reflect on where your money is going to identify what you want to change about your spending.

Expected Time: 20 minutes

What You’ll Need:

🖥 Your categorized spending in the dashboard

📝 Your journal and pen

Why It’s Important

Knowing where your money goes is only half the fun - now we get to think about where we want it to go, to meet your goals as fast as possible! You have two visual tools that will help you review your spending: the Spend by Category snapshot, and the Spend by Emotion snapshot. Follow the steps below to review both, and identify changes you want to make to your spending.

Instructions

🔍Navigate to your Spending Snapshots

Navigate to your spending snapshot in the Transactions page of the Dashboard by following these instructions:

Click Transactions from your dashboard menu to go to the Transactions Snapshot page.

Select the Month you want to view transactions in the green drop-down (shown below)

Select View all in the Top Spend by Category box for Step 1 below (highlighted in yellow)

Select View all in the Top Spend by Emotion box for Step 2 below (highlighted in yellow

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Step 1: Review Spend by Category 🔍

📝 Respond to the following questions to see what changes you can make:

Make a note in your journal about what stands out to you. Are you surprised by the totals in any categories?

Make a note of any categories for which you want to try to reduce your total spend.

Think about your categories in terms of values and goals - is your money going to what matters most to you?

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📍If you have a deficit (Money Out is more than Money In), the good news is that now we have clear clues as to what needs to change in order to get you to a surplus! The next steps will help.

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Step 2: Review Spend by Emotion 🤔

📝 Respond to the following questions to see what changes you can make:

What comes up for you when you look at the transactions associated with negative emotions? Can you identify why you made that purchase?

Do you have enough transactions that bring you positive emotions?

What do you want to change about your spending, given how it makes you feel?

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Step 3: Review🔌Utilities & Bills and 🔁Subscriptions

Click on the 🔌Utilities & Bills category in your spending snapshot to see all transactions. Are the amounts what you expected? You may want to look for money-saving opportunities with unexpectedly high bills. Even if they are what you expected...

It’s a good exercise to pull your recent statements and review what you are actually being charged for, especially for bills like your cell phone and cable. You can also see if there’s a cheaper provider in your area, or a different service level that would fulfill your needs but cost less.

3. Once you’re done looking through 🔌Utilities & Bills, click on the 🔁Subscriptions category to see all transactions. What do you not use, that you can cancel? What do you love, and want to keep?

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Next Steps

👉🏽 When you’ve completed this exercise, share your findings with your coach:

categories you want to reduce spending in

utilities or subscriptions to cancel

Reflections

You’ve completed one of the most important steps to financial wellbeing: being aware of and in control of your spending! Great job! Remember that everyone’s journey with money is unique, so if you aren’t where you want to be right now, that’s okay. You’ll get there, at a pace that works for you. Celebrate yourself today!

Why It’s Important

Instructions

🔍Navigate to your Spending Snapshots

Step 1: Review Spend by Category 🔍

Step 2: Review Spend by Emotion 🤔

Step 3: Review🔌Utilities & Bills and 🔁Subscriptions

Next Steps

Reflections

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