Read your monthly round-up.
The end of a month is the best time to look at your money and the time you're least likely to. So Spense brings the look to you: the first time you open the app in a new month, last month's round-up slides up. It shows what you spent, where it went, and up to three categories that had spending with nothing set to keep them in check. You can read it, answer, and be done in a couple of minutes.
Open Spense in the new month
Spense puts each round-up together just after the month ends. The first time you open the app after that, it slides up in place of the day's streak sheet, titled for the month that ended: in November it's Your October round-up. Under the title, Spense says How last month went, plus 3 quick questions (or just How last month went when it has nothing to ask). It waits for your phone's own calendar to reach the new month, so it never comes early in your time zone.
It comes once. When it has opened on one of your phones, it won't open again on that one or any other, so read it when it comes. If a level-up is waiting too, the level-up sheet comes first and the round-up follows it.
Read how last month went
The top card is the month in one number: what you spent, with spent in October under it and your average beside it, such as Your 6-month average: $2,310.00. The average leaves out months with no activity, so a new user's quiet months don't drag it down, and with fewer than two months to go on it's left off. If the month closed on track, a green On track · +10 💧 chip sits in the corner.
The rest of the card depends on how you budget:
- Auto: how many limits on track, and how many went over, with their names (for example went over · Restaurants). Under the card, Came in is last month's income and You kept is what was left after spending. If you spent more than came in, that number just turns plain, never red.
- Classic: what you assigned in October, what rolled into November in your categories, and one plain sentence for each category that ran out, such as Restaurants went over by $38.15. That came out of November's Ready to Assign. On a credit card, the sentence says it was added to your card payment instead.
Further down, WHERE IT WENT lists your three biggest categories with a bar each, and YOUR POND IN OCTOBER shows the drops earned that month, any new badges, and your current day streak.
In Classic, start the new month
In Classic, right under the summary card, START NOVEMBER shows your Ready to Assign right now and what your targets still need this month. If they need money, a button reads Fund targets · $480.00: one tap assigns it from Ready to Assign, category by category, until your targets are covered or the money runs out. Then the button turns into what was actually assigned, such as Funded · $480.00 (less than the button said if Ready to Assign ran short), or Nothing to fund right now if there was nothing to assign it from. When your targets need nothing, there's no button at all. It's the same money the Fund button at the top of the Budget tab would assign, and moving money between categories works as usual afterwards.
If transactions are waiting, a line says how many, such as 3 transactions to review. Review closes the round-up and opens the review card, the one in our review guide. Like closing the sheet, it counts as a no for any question below it you left open.
Answer the questions, or skip them
The questions sit under SPENT WITHOUT A LIMIT in Auto and SPENT WITHOUT A TARGET in Classic, with Want a monthly limit on any of these? (target in Classic) under it. Spense asks about up to three categories, biggest spending first: ones you spent money in last month that have no limit (Auto) or no target (Classic). It skips categories that average under $10 a month. In Classic it only asks about Spending categories, never a Bill, a Savings goal or a Debt payoff.
Each card has three buttons:
- Use this saves the suggested amount, the big number on the card with “a month” after it. Spense works it out from that category’s spending over the last three months, and the card says how many it had to go on (Based on 3 months).
- Other amount opens a box inside the card to type your own. Two chips fill it for you: Suggested, and Same as October (what you actually spent). Then tap Save limit (Save target in Classic), or Cancel to go back.
- No limit (No target in Classic) leaves the category as it is. The card reads “No limit · we won’t ask again”.
Your answer is saved as soon as you tap. A card you've answered shrinks to one line, such as Limit set · $250 a month, with Undo beside it. Undo opens the card again, and takes back a limit you just set from it. In Auto the limit counts from this month on. In Classic the answer becomes a monthly target, refill up to that amount, the same kind you'd set from the category itself.
When you're finished, tap Done (or OK when there were no questions) to close the sheet.
The round-up is the short version of a monthly money review. If you want the longer one, that post walks through it in about twenty minutes, and the Spense Method explains why a month is the right length to plan in.