Some people are really good about tracking their expenses and using software or spreadsheets to account for where their money goes right down to the penny. I am not one of those people. Don’t get me wrong, my Scottish upbringing does mean I care about my money and has instilled in me a frugality that some may confuse for cheap.
I log into my accounts every day to check balances and see what transactions have cleared but never really had a true sense of where my money was going. Until now. Recently the credit union added a feature to the digital banking system that cleans transaction data and enables it to auto classify transactions. In the past, a debit card transaction at Kroger would have looked like this:
POS 0624 1607 890416 KROGER #144 1920 W LEAGUE CITY LEAGUE CITY TX
And now, the system simply shows:
Kroger and automatically classifies it as Groceries.
Now if I select the Analytics tab in my account, I get a spending break down and see how much my family has spent on Groceries in the last month.
I can also access the information for all of my accounts at once using the financial wellness widget. Afterall, the first step to financial wellness is knowing where your money goes. Using the financial wellness widget, I can track my family’s spending trends. For example, since the start of the pandemic, our gas purchases are way down and our grocery bill is way up.
Knowing this information is the best way to start a conversation about our family spending. We’ve already identified areas where we need to make adjustments.
Post author: Jamieson Mackay, CCUFC
The opinions expressed on this page are for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal or financial advice. The views expressed are those of the author of the article and may not reflect the views of the credit union.