💳 Expense Tracker

Every expense is saved as a record with six fields: name, amount, category, date, payment method and optional notes. The first five are required, which keeps the data consistent enough for the summaries to mean something. Records are kept as a list in your browser's local storage, along with your chosen currency symbol, so the ledger is restored when you return to the page.

All figures are simple sums over that list rather than anything more elaborate. The all-time total adds every record's amount. The current month total adds only records whose date falls in the present calendar month, which is why a backdated entry immediately changes that card. The category breakdown groups records by their category and sums each group.

Filters operate on the same list before the sums are taken. Selecting a category, selecting a payment method and typing a search term narrow the visible records, and the filtered total reflects exactly what is shown while the highest figure reports the single largest amount within that subset. This is what makes the filters useful for answering a specific question, such as how much went on card payments for travel, rather than just tidying the display.

Enter six expenses for a single week: a weekly grocery shop of 82.40 on a debit card, a rail ticket of 18.60 in cash, a streaming subscription of 10.99 on a credit card, a restaurant meal of 47.50 on a credit card, a pharmacy visit of 12.25 in cash, and a taxi of 21.00 on a debit card.

The all-time total adds all six: 82.40 plus 18.60 plus 10.99 plus 47.50 plus 12.25 plus 21.00 gives 192.74 across 6 expenses. The category breakdown puts food and dining at 82.40 plus 47.50, or 129.90, transportation at 18.60 plus 21.00, or 39.60, entertainment at 10.99, and health and medical at 12.25. Food is therefore 67 per cent of the week, calculated as 129.90 divided by 192.74.

Now filter by payment method. Choosing credit card leaves the subscription and the restaurant meal, a filtered total of 58.49 with the highest single item at 47.50. Switching to cash leaves the rail ticket and the pharmacy, totalling 30.85 with a highest item of 18.60. Two clicks have told you that almost a third of the week's spending sat on one card.

The value of a tracker comes from consistency, not from precision. Log entries the same day, because reconstructing a week from memory misses small cash items. Pick one category for each recurring purchase and stay with it: splitting a weekly shop between food and home across different weeks makes the breakdown meaningless.

Read the category breakdown as a share rather than a figure. A category holding two thirds of your spending is where change has to come from; one at 3 per cent is not worth optimising. Watch the highest figure too, since one large irregular purchase can dominate a month and make a normal month look like overspending.

Be aware of what is not modelled. There is no income side, no budget limit, no recurring-entry automation and no multi-currency conversion: the currency setting changes the symbol shown, not any exchange rate, so mixing currencies in one ledger produces a meaningless total.

Finally, records are held in your browser's local storage, so clearing site data or switching device loses them. Export to CSV regularly, which also gives you a spreadsheet file for charts or tax records. This is general budgeting information, not financial advice.