Spending by category
Drop in the CSV your bank lets you download, or paste a few lines, and see where the money went, totalled by category. The file is read by your browser and never uploaded.
Transactions
Drag a .csv file here, or
Choose a fileOne payment per line: date, description and amount, separated by commas, semicolons or tabs. A header row is optional.
Columns and amounts
Category rules
One category per line, then a colon and keywords separated by commas. A keyword matches the start of a word in the description, so "grocer" finds "Grocery". The first matching line wins.
Educational use only — not financial advice
By category
Total spending $2,171.25 25 payments, 2026-10-01 to 2026-10-30 · 2 money-in rows left out
| Category | Total | Share | Payments | Bar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Housing | $1,150.00 | 53% | 1 | |
| Groceries | $408.72 | 18.8% | 6 | |
| Transport | $149.80 | 6.9% | 4 | |
| Utilities | $140.94 | 6.5% | 3 | |
| Fun & subscriptions | $67.99 | 3.1% | 3 | |
| Insurance | $64.10 | 3% | 1 | |
| Cash & transfers | $60.00 | 2.8% | 1 | |
| Eating out | $42.50 | 2% | 3 | |
| Shopping | $23.75 | 1.1% | 1 | |
| Health | $18.45 | 0.8% | 1 | |
| Uncategorised | $45.00 | 2.1% | 1 | |
| Total | $2,171.25 | 100% | 25 |
Payments
Change a payment's category here; the totals follow. These choices are not saved.
| Date | Description | Amount | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-01 | Rent payment to landlord | $1,150.00 | |
| 2026-10-02 | Corner Grocer | $46.80 | |
| 2026-10-03 | City Transit card top-up | $40.00 | |
| 2026-10-04 | Hillside Cafe | $7.20 | |
| 2026-10-05 | Electric bill | $71.35 | |
| 2026-10-06 | Riverside Supermarket | $112.64 | |
| 2026-10-08 | Northside Fuel | $52.10 | |
| 2026-10-09 | Pharmacy on Elm | $18.45 | |
| 2026-10-10 | Pizza night takeaway | $28.90 | |
| 2026-10-11 | Broadband monthly | $39.99 | |
| 2026-10-12 | Hardware store | $23.75 | |
| 2026-10-13 | Riverside Supermarket | $98.20 | |
| 2026-10-15 | Gym membership | $32.00 | |
| 2026-10-16 | Hillside Cafe | $6.40 | |
| 2026-10-17 | Cinema tickets | $24.00 | |
| 2026-10-18 | Car insurance | $64.10 | |
| 2026-10-20 | Corner Grocer | $38.15 | |
| 2026-10-22 | Water bill | $29.60 | |
| 2026-10-23 | Parking garage | $9.00 | |
| 2026-10-24 | Birthday gift for Sam | $45.00 | |
| 2026-10-25 | Riverside Supermarket | $104.33 | |
| 2026-10-27 | Main St Bakery | $8.60 | |
| 2026-10-28 | Streaming subscription | $11.99 | |
| 2026-10-29 | Northside Fuel | $48.70 | |
| 2026-10-30 | ATM cash withdrawal | $60.00 |
From a statement to category totals
Most online banking and card accounts can download transactions as a CSV file, often under "Export" or "Download transactions". Drop that file on the box, choose it with the button, or paste the rows.
The tool guesses which columns hold the date, description and amount from the header names, or from the values when there is no header; check its guesses under "Columns and amounts". Some files have one signed amount column, others separate money-out and money-in columns. Spending is usually negative in a bank account export and positive on a card statement; rows on the other side, such as pay or refunds, are counted as money in and left out.
Each payment goes to the first category whose keyword starts a word in its description. Edit the rules to match the names on your statement; they are saved in this browser. Anything unmatched lands in Uncategorised, where you can pick a category payment by payment. In the table, each bar is a category's total scaled to the largest one.
For comparison, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Expenditure Surveys find that housing and transportation are the two largest areas of spending for US households.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Surveys.
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer tips for managing spending (PDF): tracking spending by category over a week or a month.
Questions
Is my bank statement uploaded?
No. Your browser reads the file and does the sums on your device. Transactions are kept only while the page is open; only your category rules are saved, under the key cedarledger-rules.
Why are my amounts wrong?
Check the decimal separator: files from much of Europe write 12,50 for twelve and a half. Also check that the amount column is the payment and not the running balance.
A payment is in the wrong category. What now?
The first matching rule wins, so move a more specific line higher, or pick the category for that payment in the list.