How to audit your spending and find where it went
A bank statement is a diary you didn't mean to keep. Here's how to read it back and find where the money actually went.
Budgeting & Saving
Frameworks for tracking your spending, automating your savings, and building the buffer that quietly props up everything else.
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Our best attempts.
Why you can't save money (it was never willpower)
You keep failing the willpower test because it was never a willpower test. Change the set-up, automate one transfer, and saving happens without you.
The envelope system and cash stuffing: does it still work in a cashless Europe?
The cash envelope budgeting system still works in a cashless Europe, but only if the empty bucket can actually stop your card. Cash, pots, and sub-accounts compared.
The subscription audit: how to find and cancel recurring expenses
Run a 30-minute subscription audit: find every recurring charge, cancel it, and use your EU bank and SEPA rights to make it stop.
More posts
The payday running order: what to do when you get paid
The euro payment system shuts four days straight every Easter. Move the payments nobody else is waiting for to at least five days after payday, on a date at or below the 28th that your own bills have already cleared.
How much should you have saved by 30, 40 and 50? The European answer
One year's salary by 30, three times by 40. That rule is American, and it assumes you fund half your own retirement yourself. Most of Europe already funds more, and most countries have a free government site where you can look yours up.
How to get back on track after overspending, without starting over
The bad month cost you one month. The nine you didn't go back cost nine times more. Restart at a figure that survives December, and keep the balance.
The 50/30/20 budget rule: a simple plan for European savers, and where it breaks
The 50/30/20 budget rule for European savers, explained plainly: how to split take-home pay, what a need is, and what to do when rent breaks the 50% ceiling.
Loud budgeting: how to turn down plans you can't afford without shame
Someone's booked a hen weekend that costs a week's groceries. Loud budgeting is how you say no to it without sounding cheap, broke, or mean.
Fix your savings, stay flexible, or build a ladder?
Rates fell, then the ECB hiked. Nobody can call the next move, and a savings ladder is built for exactly that uncertainty.
How to track your net worth: a monthly guide for Europeans
Track net worth across countries and currencies with one home currency, one rate source, and one date each month. A plain, repeatable habit.
Saving for short-term vs long-term goals: where to put your money
Match each pot to its timeline: keep one-year money in cash, five-year money in government bonds, and ten-year-plus money in diversified funds.