How to track expenses from a bank statement

Download your statement as a CSV file from your bank's website, then drop it into DonkeyBucks. Your purchases get sorted into buckets, so fixed spending sits apart from the flexible kind. Bills are bills, so you can see where the rest goes and what you could skip. You never type a bank password, and the Free plan covers it.

Your statement already lists every purchase. DonkeyBucks does the sorting.

Start by logging in to your bank's website the way you normally do and finding the statement download. If you can't find it, here are the download steps for eight big banks. Pick CSV and save the file. Then drag it into DonkeyBucks. The import matches your columns and detects your dates, so the file doesn't have to be tidy. Old Mint exports and plain spreadsheets import too, if you've got one lying around.

Not ready to sign up? Drop the same file into the free statement check first. It lists every subscription and repeating bill in the file, with a monthly total. There's no signup, and the file never leaves your computer.

Once the file is in DonkeyBucks, every purchase lands in a bucket. The buckets are Fixed Essential, Variable Essential, Discretionary Recurring and Discretionary One-Time. That way you can see what you can change. Bills are bills. The rest is where the small stuff adds up, and now you can see it.

A couple of things keep the totals honest. Transfers between your own accounts stay out of your spending, so moving money around doesn't look like spending it. And if part of your statement is work, the Work page lets you mark charges an employer will pay back and keeps them out of your personal totals. Business expenses work the same way.

If you'd rather skip the file, you can add accounts by hand and type purchases in. It's slower, but it works.

On safety, DonkeyBucks never asks for or stores a bank username or password. The statement is a file you choose to upload, and it's encrypted both while it travels and while it's stored. You can export everything or delete your account whenever you like, and I never sell your data.

On cost, Free is $0 with no card needed. It covers uploading statements and adding accounts by hand, with buckets and the big picture on top. Budgets and goals are in there too, along with the monthly recap email. Every new account also starts with 30 days of Pro, no credit card required. Pro sorts new purchases itself and flags price hikes and repeat charges. After the trial it drops to Free and you keep all your data. If you want to stay on Pro, it's $2.99 a month or $29 a year.

So grab last month's CSV and drop it in. The donkey will supervise.