Fifteen minutes a month

The whole habit, start to finish, in the order you do it every month: download, upload, label, look at the month, look at the year.

15 min Habits Monthly habit

Your workbook may look different. If there is no brown band of buttons along the top, use the Money Mastery menu in the menu bar above your workbook. The names are a little different there: Categorize is Categorize Transactions, Reports is Clarity AI & Reports, Dashboard is Open Dashboard, and Start Here is Getting Started.

Watch

The video for this page is being made. The written steps below are the same ones it shows.

Read the transcript

Welcome in. Today the whole habit, start to finish, in the order you will do it every month. Fifteen minutes, five steps, and by January you have twelve months side by side.

Download. Sign in to each bank, click Transactions, choose last month, click Export as CSV. One file per account, into your Downloads folder. Three minutes.

Upload. Click the Categorize button in your workbook, click Upload at the top ri.

Label. Click the Uncategorized tab. Click the Clarity tab and click the tick on the suggestions that are right, or Accept All when they all are. Back on Uncategorized, click each label box, type a few letters, choose, and click Need or Desire on the spending ones. Watch the count reach zero. Five minutes.

Look at the month. Click the Monthly Overview tab, click the month box and choose last month. The four numbers, the charts, the tables. Anything surprising, click the Categorize button, type the label in the search box, and read the rows. Two minutes.

Look at the year. Click the Yearly Overview tab. Twelve months side by side. Read across a row that surprised you. Where is the pattern. Two minutes.

Close the workbook. Nothing to save; it saved as you went. You are done until next month.

The habit is the product. Nothing in the workbook is clever enough to make up for a month you skipped, and nothing is hard enough to excuse skipping one. Put the first of the month in your calendar.

The reminder email you chose in Setup lands on the day you picked with one link to the workbook, so the habit starts in your inbox, not in your memory.

Download, upload, label, look at the month, look at the year. Fifteen minutes. See you next month.

Welcome in. Today the whole habit, start to finish, in the order you will do it every month. Fifteen minutes, five steps, and by January you have twelve months side by side.

Step by step

Download. Sign in to each bank, click Transactions, choose last month, click Export as CSV

One file per account, into your Downloads folder. Three minutes.
Upload. Click the Categorize button in your workbook, click Upload at the top ri
Label. Click the Uncategorized tab

Click the Clarity tab and click the tick on the suggestions that are right, or Accept All when they all are. Back on Uncategorized, click each label box, type a few letters, choose, and click Need or Desire on the spending ones. Watch the count reach zero. Five minutes.
Look at the month

Click the Monthly Overview tab, click the month box and choose last month. The four numbers, the charts, the tables. Anything surprising, click the Categorize button, type the label in the search box, and read the rows. Two minutes.
Look at the year

Click the Yearly Overview tab. Twelve months side by side. Read across a row that surprised you. Where is the pattern. Two minutes.
Close the workbook

Nothing to save; it saved as you went. You are done until next month.

The idea behind it

The habit is the product. Nothing in the workbook is clever enough to make up for a month you skipped, and nothing is hard enough to excuse skipping one. Put the first of the month in your calendar.

Worth knowing

The reminder email you chose in Setup lands on the day you picked with one link to the workbook, so the habit starts in your inbox, not in your memory.

Remember

Download, upload, label, look at the month, look at the year. Fifteen minutes. See you next month.

Up next, Chapter 5

The cells that are not yours