Where Did My Salary Go? Help Documentation

A complete guide to the salary spending analyzer, from your first month to next month's budget.

Last Updated: November 9, 2026

1. Getting Started

At the top left the toolbar shows the open month and how many months are filled in; on the right are Hide amounts and Help. The five tabs choose the view: This month (the worksheet), Where it went (the report), Plan, History and Settings. The first time, the report offers Start with the current month, Import a bank statement or Try an example. While the example is open your own months are put aside, and Clear the example brings them back.

2. Money In

Under This month, type your take-home salary: what reached your bank after tax, PF and other deductions. The buttons under it add another salary, a bonus or incentive, freelance or side work, rent received, interest and dividends, or other money in; each can have its own name and can be removed. Use the arrows or the month name at the top to move between months.

3. Spending and Saving

The worksheet has five groups: Essentials, Lifestyle, Loans and EMIs, Fees, fines and interest and Saved and invested. Type an amount in a category and choose how often it is paid: a month, a week, a day, a workday, a quarter or a year. Amounts can be typed as 8400, 12k, 1.2L, 450 + 300 or 150 x 22; the line under the box shows what it comes to a month. More categories shows the rest of a group and Add a category makes your own. The summary beside the worksheet (above it on a phone) shows the month so far and what is not accounted for. At the bottom, Left in your account is what is still there at month end.

4. Items, One-off and Rarely Used

The list button beside a category turns it into items, such as each subscription. Add an item adds a row with its own name, amount and how often; the category adds them up. The more button on an item opens a window to mark it One-off this month (left out when the month is compared with your usual month) or I rarely use this (a leak the checks list), to move it to another category, or to delete it; a deletion can be undone for a few seconds.

5. Importing a Bank Statement

1. Download your statement from your bank's website or app as CSV or Excel (.xlsx). Card statements work too.
2. Choose Import bank statement (or press I), then drop the file in the window or choose it. Or open Or paste the table and paste the rows from your bank's web page with the heading row.
3. The file is read in this browser; nothing is uploaded. PDF and old .xls files cannot be read.

6. Checking the Sorting

The window lists the payments of the chosen month grouped by shop and category, with what is not sorted yet at the top, money in below, and what is left out (card bill payments, transfers between your own accounts) at the end. Change any line's category in its menu. Choose the Month if the file covers several, and whether to Replace the categories it fills or Add to what is already there. Under Columns and dates you can pick the columns yourself, say whether dates are day first or month first, and, for one amount column, whether payments are negative or positive. Add to the month puts each shop in as an item marked From statement.

7. Where It Went

The report starts with a sentence of what each 100 of your pay went on, four readouts (money in, spent, kept and not accounted for), and the flow of your pay into every group and category. Point at or focus a stream for its share of pay and what it cost in hours of work. Keep a copy at the bottom copies a summary, downloads a CSV or prints the report.

8. The Checks

Each check is marked Act on it, Watch, Worth knowing or Good, with what it costs a month and a year and a button to act on it. The line at the top says how much a month could stay with you if you acted on all of them. The thresholds are rules of thumb, not advice:

• Not accounted for above 3% of pay (needs work above 8%); more out than in
• Saving rate below the target of your split (needs work below half of it)
• Wants more than 2 points above the split, needs more than 5 points above it
• Housing (rent and home loan) above 30% and 40% of pay; all EMIs above 30% and 40%; pay later and small loans above 5%
• Fees and card interest; items marked rarely used; subscriptions above 3%; daily spends above 2%
• Eating out above 8% of pay or more than your groceries; lifestyle categories more than 3 points above their usual share; cash above 5%
• Categories up by a quarter on the average of your last three months
• One-off spends; money left idle in the account; emergency savings below 3 or 6 months of essentials and EMIs; no insurance

9. Needs, Wants and Savings

Two bars compare your month with your split: needs are essentials and EMIs, wants are lifestyle and fees, and savings are what you saved, invested and left in the account. Change opens the split in Settings.

10. Every Category and Hours of Work

The table lists every category with its amount, share of pay, usual share, budget if set, the change from the month before and the hours of work it cost, by group or biggest first. What it cost in hours of work shows your pay an hour and the six biggest categories in hours.

11. The Plan

Move a slider to spend less on a category, or use Act on the checks, Lifestyle 10% less or Start again. Find me looks for an amount you type: fees first, then lifestyle a little at a time, then at most 15% of groceries, transport, phone, bills and home help, never rent, loans, health, insurance, education or family support. The panel shows what you would keep, your saving rate now and with the plan, and what it grows to over 1 to 30 years at the return you choose. It is an estimate, not a promise.

12. Budgets

Use as next month's budget sets a budget for every spending category from the next month: this month's amount less the cuts. This month then shows a bar for each budget, the report's table has a budget column, and a check says which categories went over. Remove the budget takes it away (it can be undone for a few seconds).

13. History

Columns for every month split into the groups with your pay as a line, for 6 months, 12 months or all, in amounts or shares of pay; point at a column, or focus the chart and use the arrow keys, and Enter or a click opens that month's report. Below: every month in a table, your usual month and its biggest categories, and What changed between any two months.

14. Settings

• Money: the currency (19, the symbol and number style only), the number style and short or full amounts in summaries.
• The checks: the split (50/30/20, 60/20/20, 70/20/10 or your own), the hours you work a week, and the emergency savings you have.
• Privacy on screen: hide amounts every time the page opens.
• Categories: show or hide each one on This month, change its usual share, add or delete your own (amounts of a deleted one move to Everything else).
• Statement sorting you chose: every category you changed while importing; change or forget each.

The light and dark theme follows the round button at the top right of every page of the site.

15. Your Data, Files and Printing

Your months stay in this browser's storage on this device; nothing is uploaded. Under Settings, Your data exports and restores a backup, saves all months as CSV, opens or clears the example, and Delete everything removes everything this tool keeps in this browser and leaves the rest of the site alone. The report's Print the report prints the month on its own page; the browser's own Print command prints the same.

16. Keyboard Shortcuts

• 1 to 5 the five views; ← and → move between the tabs (outside a text box)
• [ and ] the month before and after
• I import a bank statement; H hide or show amounts
• On a chart, the arrow keys step through it; Esc closes a window

17. How It Was Checked

The sums and checks were compared with a reference written separately from the rules on this page: thousands of typed amounts, 1,500 months of sums, 1,500 months through every check with their history, the growth formula, "find me" cuts, more than 1,500 dates and 360 bank and card statements in ten layouts as CSV and Excel files, plus an Excel file built to unpack to 128 MB, which is refused.

18. Troubleshooting

• The statement says the date and amount columns could not be found. Make sure the heading row is included (when pasting, copy it too), or choose the columns under Columns and dates.
• Dates look wrong (March instead of 3rd). Under Columns and dates, choose Day first or Month first.
• Payments show as money in. For one amount column, choose whether payments are negative or positive under Columns and dates.
• My months are gone. They are kept per browser and device; a private window or cleared browser data starts empty. Restore your latest backup.
• The amounts are blurred. Hide amounts is on; press it or H.

19. Support

For questions the FAQ does not answer, use the contact form. Please describe what you did without sending your statement or figures.