# How do you track your spending and budget? **URL:** \ **Category:** Community Lounge\ **Tags:** buildingneo, tips-and-tricks, budget\ **Created:** [September 15, 2025, 8:16pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987 "2025-09-15T20:16:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![anon21088155](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f14d63/32.png) [@anon21088155](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/anon21088155)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2025, 8:16pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/1 "2025-09-15T20:16:30Z")
Hey everyone šŸ‘‹ One of my teammates at Neo is putting together a business case around budgeting features, and weā€™re curious to hear from people directly on what works best for you today. Personally, Iā€™ve always done my own accounting ā€” even before Neo was my main bank. Every month, I export all my transactions, categorize them (groceries, restaurants, alcohol, coffee, etc.), and add tags like travel or gifts. I also keep a section for deposits, investments, cash-flow, and net worth. Thatā€™s my approach, but weā€™d love to hear yours: - Do you use spreadsheets, apps, notebooks, or something else? - Do you focus on tracking every expense, or just the big categories? - Whatā€™s the most helpful way for you to see your overall financial picture? Really appreciate any insights youā€™re willing to share. šŸ™ ---
**Author:** ![tkato](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/tkato/32/214_2.png) [@tkato](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/tkato)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 7:49pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/2 "2025-09-20T19:49:33Z")
Spreadsheets divided into categories! I find the categorization that most credit cards default to can be imprecise so the only way that worked was to manually categorize transactions. A lot of work and Iā€™d love an easier way! ---
**Author:** ![anon21088155](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f14d63/32.png) [@anon21088155](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/anon21088155)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2025, 8:53pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/3 "2025-09-22T20:53:32Z")
Hi @tkato thatā€™s definitely an awesome idea, Iā€™ll be sure to pass the idea of having a more precise way to export the transactions along to the team that can use it most. Iā€™m going to reach out to you through DMs to confirm your details so that if we do end up getting that feature I can email you about it! ---
**Author:** ![tkato](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/tkato/32/214_2.png) [@tkato](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/tkato)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2025, 9:50pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/4 "2025-09-22T21:50:33Z")
Sure thing will connect with you in DMs. Thanks @anon21088155 ! ---
**Author:** ![GrantLahring\_Neo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/grantlahring_neo/32/1124_2.png) [@GrantLahring\_Neo](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/GrantLahring_Neo)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2025, 8:52pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/5 "2025-09-28T20:52:18Z")
Iā€™ve been doing this for years, since 2018! None of the banks offered great categorization off the books so I went to a spreadsheet. Itā€™s pretty sophisticated now, but I have a friend that recommended YNAB and Iā€™m thinking of trying next. ---
**Author:** ![permastudent](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/permastudent/32/1196_2.png) [@permastudent](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/permastudent)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2025, 3:46pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/6 "2025-10-01T15:46:26Z")
I find YNAB to be quite difficult for new users and a barrier to the basics of budgeting. I shake my fist at the clouds that desktop based solutions have gone by the wayside as being able to export a CSV from your bank and upload and manually manage your money, compare actual to budget was quite handy. Unless Canada adopts the Open Banking framework more robustly, the current method of using services like Plaid does still concern me as weā€™re essentially just screen scraping. I would love to have the ability to have CSV with selectable columns, as I would categorize myself after uploading into my budget system. ---
**Author:** ![GrantLahring\_Neo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/grantlahring_neo/32/1124_2.png) [@GrantLahring\_Neo](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/GrantLahring_Neo)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2025, 5:04pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/7 "2025-10-01T17:04:00Z")
When you say CSV with selectable columns, you mean selecting what you want to export rather than just exporting all columns, which is how weā€™re currently set up? ---
**Author:** ![permastudent](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/permastudent/32/1196_2.png) [@permastudent](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/permastudent)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2025, 5:12pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/8 "2025-10-01T17:12:19Z")
Exactly Grant - my budgeting app makes me go through one extra step of matching (and then excluding) the extraneous columns, so having the ability to just select the ones I need would be a great _want_ but CSV works well enough for me. It is frustrating that Plaid works one way into Neo and not the other way around but thatā€™s honestly for the best from a liability standpoint. ---
**Author:** ![GrantLahring\_Neo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/grantlahring_neo/32/1124_2.png) [@GrantLahring\_Neo](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/GrantLahring_Neo)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2025, 6:05pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/9 "2025-10-01T18:05:05Z")
Yeah, deleting and reordering columns is a familiar frustration for me, I used to do that every week. I would honestly love to be able to do a little more in the app, in terms of categorizing transactions, so I donā€™t have to do that manually every export as well. ---
**Author:** ![tsutlovic](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/tsutlovic/32/460_2.png) [@tsutlovic](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/tsutlovic)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2025, 7:12am UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/10 "2025-10-04T07:12:07Z")
A few months ago I found a free open source budgeting app that I really like called cashew! It has both mobile apps and a website so you can do things on both desktop and mobile. It supports CSVs and manual input. Iā€™ve honestly love the look of it and being able to support a small developer on it if I want to pay, but itā€™s totally free! Over the years Iā€™ve gone through quite a few different ways of budgeting and tracking. I have various different things like a spreadsheet for some rough budgeting. I mostly tracked things mentally until recently as I only had like one or two main accounts Iā€™d use. I know budgeting/tracking things are quite personal but Iā€™d recommend people try out cashew as itā€™s quite nice and seems to fit a lot of needs. Plus itā€™s free and open source and made in Canada! ---
**Author:** ![jsmaster](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/jsmaster/32/2714_2.png) [@jsmaster](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/jsmaster)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2025, 6:29pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/11 "2025-10-06T18:29:15Z")
I donā€™t budget I just spend lol šŸ˜‚. But for real I used to use budgeting tools like intuit however it was a pain to connect to the bank and needed to authentifiĆ© after every few days it was not great. Tried spreadsheet but you need to do it after each purchase lol. It Neo could get a built in budgeting tool that would be nice. You already have a basic version of it but showing in and outs but knowing how good your developpers are , it can be the pinnacle on the app. Seriously thereā€™s no other financial app as smooth and well built as yours. Even Wealthsimple is no match. When you start offering the same products as them ( managed tfsa with stocks ) youā€™ll be a serious contender for them ---
**Author:** ![GrantLahring\_Neo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/grantlahring_neo/32/1124_2.png) [@GrantLahring\_Neo](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/GrantLahring_Neo)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 8:43pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/12 "2025-10-08T20:43:08Z")
I am for sure checking out Cashew, that sounds amazing. It looks like the Anki (not sure if youā€™ve ever used Anki, but itā€™s an amazing flash card tool) for budgeting. Cheers! ---
**Author:** ![GrantLahring\_Neo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/grantlahring_neo/32/1124_2.png) [@GrantLahring\_Neo](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/GrantLahring_Neo)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 8:45pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/13 "2025-10-08T20:45:29Z")
Youā€™ve got the Community team blushing haha Budgeting tools are on the radar, and from what weā€™re hearing they donā€™t have to be fancy. Appreciate you weighing in on the discussion. As for managed TFSAs, we do actually do that. Iā€™ve been using WS and our Neo Invest for almost a year now and they return effectively the same rate. I could use either, but since most of my money is in Neo I focusing it on that side. ---
**Author:** ![Pavlo\_Matsibokh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/pavlo_matsibokh/32/1405_2.png) [@Pavlo\_Matsibokh](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/Pavlo_Matsibokh)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2026, 2:01am UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/14 "2026-01-03T02:01:48Z")
I tried budgeting spreadsheets and apps before, but I never stuck with them. What works for me now is just using a simple mobile app that automatically tracks my spending, so I donā€™t have to think about it or manually enter anything. I mostly look at patterns rather than strict budgets. [https://apps.apple.com/app/id6755078593](https://apps.apple.com/app/id6755078593) ---
**Author:** ![GrantLahring\_Neo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/grantlahring_neo/32/1124_2.png) [@GrantLahring\_Neo](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/GrantLahring_Neo)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 12:32am UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/15 "2026-01-04T00:32:13Z")
How is the AI classification? Is there a way to override it if they put something in a different category than you want? Or adjust the categories? ---
**Author:** ![Pavlo\_Matsibokh](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/pavlo_matsibokh/32/1405_2.png) [@Pavlo\_Matsibokh](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/Pavlo_Matsibokh)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 1:08am UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/16 "2026-01-04T01:08:53Z")
At the moment thereā€™s no way to change the category for already scanned receipts ā€” itā€™s fully automatic for now. Manual category overrides are already in development and will be released very soon, together with the ability to generate PDF expense reports. For now I mostly rely on pattern analysis rather than perfect categorization, but finer control is coming shortly. ---
**Author:** ![GrantLahring\_Neo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/grantlahring_neo/32/1124_2.png) [@GrantLahring\_Neo](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/GrantLahring_Neo)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2026, 1:35am UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/17 "2026-01-04T01:35:06Z")
Iā€™m sure AI does a better job categorizing than most of the default softwares Iā€™ve seenā€¦ I just want the option to fine-tune it afterward. Thatā€™s whatā€™s chaining me to my spreadsheet, which my partner and I just had to update for 2026. ---
**Author:** ![graedenmiddel](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/graedenmiddel/32/2114_2.png) [@graedenmiddel](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/graedenmiddel)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2026, 3:06pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/18 "2026-02-19T15:06:18Z")
Just made this post! > [@Idea: Budgeting Feature With Minimal Business Case, But TAM Opportunity](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/idea-budgeting-feature-with-minimal-business-case-but-tam-opportunity/4452): > > There are many people who, early into their personal finance journey, have looked for better ways to budget their monthly incomes and expenses. If youā€™re like me, youā€™ve looked around at the available tools, maybe tried some out, but they never really hit the sweet spot of what you need. Theyā€™re too basic or too expensive. There used to be a great option when Intuitā€™s Mint budgeting tool was around - so many great features, so much integration, very user friendly, and lots of insights and recommā€¦ If youā€™re looking to improve budgeting features in Neo, using Mint as a blueprint is the go-to! I was so sad when Mint shut down, I would LOVE to see Neo create something similar. Could be used to convert new users to the credit/investment products/offerings from Neo as well. ---
**Author:** ![surlacote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@surlacote](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/surlacote)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2026, 6:56pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/19 "2026-05-15T18:56:10Z")
YNAB is a amazing! Sadly, NEO will not upload transactions to the systemā€¦ yet ---
**Author:** ![Mattbrennan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/neofinancial.discourse.group/mattbrennan/32/1825_2.png) [@Mattbrennan](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/u/Mattbrennan)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2026, 2:54pm UTC](https://neofinancial.discourse.group/t/how-do-you-track-your-spending-and-budget/2987/20 "2026-06-05T14:54:41Z")
I used to use Mint by Intuit and it was pretty good. I liked that I could link all my different accounts and get real time updates on everything. They also did categorization but allowed you to override and adjust things, if you adjusted a couple times it would learn and then recategorize things moving forward - they discontinued the productā€¦ Right now, I have an obsessively detailed spread sheet as follows: - **Overview** - assets, liabilities, net worth - a few of these have formula automations built in to update monthly based on attached payment schedules, - **Monthly budget** - with a breakdown of income, fixed and variable expenses, savings and investing. I also have a dashboard built to show me what percentage of my income I am spending in each category (fixed, guilt free spending, savings, investments - as per ramit sethi), I have a separate table that breaks down specific monthly spending - for simplicity sake I just take the monthly spending insights straight from NEO and plug it into the categories. I average out several months on each line item to figure out my averages which informs my actual budget for each line. - **Spending tabs** - I have a few tabs to track and edit individual spending lines like house - where I average out bills and feeds into the main budget, same thing with vehicle expenses and a streaming tab to track and update which platforms we are currently paying for. - **Renos** - we have been doing a big home reno so have a tab to track all the different things we have and will be spending on - **Savings** - have a tab to map out things we are saving for in the short term and how formulas to look at our savings rate in the budget and how long till we achieve each savings goal. - **Income** - we have some varied incomes at different month with mat/pat leave, new child benefit, rental income, etc. just have this mapped out for the coming months and formula to feed directly into our income section of the budget - **Retirement** - I have a retirement calculator built out that maps current income, projected income before retirement, retirement income needs, likely CPP and OAS payouts, and then a built calculator that accounts for my current retirement investments, assumed investment growth, target retirement date - the end result is a big calculated number of projected income and matches with needed income to spit out an age that I can retire at. All that to say on an inflation adjusted basis know how much I need to retire, the age at which I will hit it, how much of my income I will replace and the withdrawal rate. Honestly, probably more work than itā€™s worth but i occasionally look at it when making spending/investing decisions and the impact. All that to say, when I have a budgeting app it was for real time updates on stuff and took out the manual steps of some of my spreadsheet work but didnā€™t replace the spreadsheet. Without using mint, I default to the manual way and do my updates - open to trying something new in the future but havenā€™t spent the time looking into a new product. If NEO spending categorization could simply let me recategorize or make my own categories that would be a huge step.