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Bank statement CSV to monthly budget
A budget built on what you actually spent is easier to keep than one built on guesses. Your bank's CSV already has the data; the work is sorting it into categories and totalling it by month.
Step 1: Get a CSV covering at least three full months
One month can be unusual (a holiday, an annual fee). Three or more shows the pattern. Banks differ in how far back they let you download; see the export guides for banks we could check against their own help pages. Note that the free version of the categorizer reads the latest 3 months of one file.
Step 2: Categorize every line
Drop the CSV into the categorizer. It sorts lines into categories from the text of each line. Anything with unclear text stays in "Other" until you set a rule, so go through "Other" first and add rules for the merchants you see most. The app remembers your rules in your browser.
Step 3: Keep transfers out of spending
Moving money from your current account to your savings is not spending. If you load several accounts, the monthly totals leave transfers between accounts out unless you tick "Include transfers between accounts". Check that card repayments are not counted twice (once as a card purchase, once as a payment from your current account).
Step 4: Read the monthly totals
The app shows spending by category for each month, as a chart and a table, and exports a monthly summary CSV. Each currency is totalled separately; nothing is converted. For each category, note the lowest, highest and typical month.
Step 5: Set targets from your own numbers
- List fixed costs first: rent, utilities, insurance, subscriptions. These barely move.
- For flexible categories (groceries, eating out, transport) start with your typical month, not an ideal number.
- Pick one or two categories to reduce. Cutting everything at once rarely lasts.
- Put the summary CSV into the spreadsheet or budgeting tool you already use, and compare each new month against it.
Limits to keep in mind
- Automatic categories are guesses. On our own small test (37 lines from public sample files) they matched our hand labels about 3 times in 4 on formats the tool had not been tuned on, but only about 3 in 5 for lines that belong in a real category. Treat that as a rough guide, not a measurement of your bank.
- This is not financial, tax or legal advice. Check the numbers before you rely on them.
Source
This is our own how-to, not a bank page, so there is no bank source to cite. The accuracy figures are from our own test described on the home page.
Then categorize it free, offline
Drop your bank CSV on the page and see monthly totals by category. It reads the file inside your browser tab and does not upload it.
Free: one file at a time, latest 3 months of it. CSV only, no PDF.