Fen

Leaving the history alone is the right call and people find it very hard. The old data is not worth the evening.

Ninety categories is the standard failure and the fix is the opposite of what feels rigorous: use about eight, and make each one a decision you could actually make.

The test for whether a category earns its place: would you ever change your behaviour based on that number alone? If the answer is no, it is detail, not a category.

Nobody has ever changed anything because household was four pounds higher than last month. People do change things when they see what eating out or transport costs over a quarter.

A structure that survives, roughly:

• Fixed, rent, bills, insurance, subscriptions. Things you cannot change this month.
• Food in, everything eaten at home, including the supermarket, including the corner shop.
• Food out: restaurants, takeaway, coffee.
• Transport
• Personal, clothes, hobbies, haircuts, whatever
• Health
• Gifts and one-offs
• Everything else

Eight lines you can read in ten seconds.

The two that matter most are food in versus food out, because that split is genuinely actionable and it is the one people most often blur into a single food category. Your groceries, supermarket, food and household confusion resolves into one line: food in.