The Two-Card Split
See what you are really spending without tracking anything.
Tracking every purchase works for about three weeks. Then life happens and the spreadsheet dies, and you are back to guessing.
Separating fixed costs from flexible spending across two accounts makes the flexible number visible without any tracking at all. You do not categorise anything. You just look at one balance, and it tells you the only thing you needed to know.
Send all fixed costs to one account
Rent, bills, insurance, subscriptions, debt payments. Everything that arrives whether you like it or not.
Fund it in full on payday
Move the whole month of fixed costs across at once. That account is now handled and you never think about it again.
Spend everything else from the other
Groceries, going out, clothes, whatever. No categories, no tracking. One balance.
Check one number, once a week
The flexible balance. Falling faster than the weeks are passing is the only signal you need.
Go deeper
What the paid version adds to this one.
Where to put savings in this structure so it is not competing with spending
The three-account variant, and when the extra account is worth it
How to run it on a joint income without micro-managing each other
A filmed setup across a real month