You'll definitely save money. 5 recommended apps to help you save money.

Aug 13, 2022

💡The " Notion Life Community " is now open!
By subscribing, you can read all paid articles , and you also get benefits such as Notion support for questions and study sessions . Click here to join the community where you can connect with many Notion users!

Hello everyone, this is Rei.
This is a sudden question, but how do you manage your money?

I used to be quite lazy and had a tendency to spend a lot of money, but I've finally been able to improve that recently, so this time I'd like to introduce the method I've used to ensure I'm able to save money and five recommended apps that will help you save money .

There aren't many people who can introduce this kind of app, so I'd like to explain it in detail 🔥

Keep track of your income and expenses with Notion.

First, in order to save money, you need to know how much money is coming in and how much is going out .

You can use a household budget, but this time I will explain how to do it using `` Notion .''

Notion is a note-taking app, but it's also famous as a spreadsheet app.
So I decided to make a household budget like this.

Create your own personal household budget using Notion

Create a page for each expense item and write down the amount, whether it is an expense or income , the category , which account or card you used to pay , the date of payment , and any other notes.

The checkbox on the far left is used to determine whether the amount has been finalized or whether there is no need to review it. If you want to review it, uncheck this box to make it easier to understand.

It is also recommended to write income as a positive amount and expenses as a negative amount .

Notion will calculate the total. *The amount is for illustrative purposes only.

This will allow Notion to calculate how much you have left over in total. The remaining amount is the amount you can save .

Visualize the flow of money with Miro.

Once you have determined the actual amount, the next step is to decide which account to allocate the money to .

Here are some recommended whiteboard apps for when you want to organize something in diagrams.
I'll use "Miro" to organize it.

The really important thing here is to have one account for each major expense category . Having only two accounts, one for savings and one for living expenses, is not good.

If you want to live on 30,000 yen a month for food , put 30,000 yen into a food account every month . Then, when that account is about to run out, you'll think, " Oh, I'm running low on food this month. I need to start saving ."

I'm lazy, so I understand this very well, but even if you set a monthly budget, when it comes time to actually spend it, you have no idea whether you're using your money wisely or not.

In the end, at the end of the month, you end up thinking, " I spent too much this month...I'll try harder next month, " and the cycle repeats.

I actually visualized it using Miro.

The accounts I divided are as follows. I think this division is just a matter of personal preference.

Fixed Expenses Account
savings account
Entertainment expenses account
Food account
Side job/expense account

Once you have divided the money, decide how much you will transfer to each account each month. It may be easier to understand if you write down the amounts in Miro.

From here on, we will explain how to actually allocate it and which bank to use to manage it.

Automate it with Rakuten Bank.

You may be wondering why you would have to go to the trouble of depositing money into a bank account yourself, but this can be automated.

Here we will introduce banks that offer lower fees when transferring money automatically: Rakuten Bank and SBI Bank .

In particular, I use Rakuten Bank because I do a lot of shopping on Rakuten. I won't go into the details, but if you set it up as your salary account , you can make up to five remittances free of charge .

For more detailed information, please see the website here

Once you have set up automatic deposits to each of the accounts you just decided on, all you have to do is leave it alone, so it will only be a hassle at first and it will be easy.

Use it wisely with the B/43.

You can save money using the steps above, but from here on we'd like to introduce another recommended app, ` `B/43 .''

B/43 is an app recommended for people who are constantly dealing with money other than themselves.

You can open a joint account.
Two separate cards can be issued to link to a joint account.
You can do this at other banks if you want, but it's really easy to apply.
You can register it as a payment card for PayPay.

By using this, I no longer need to settle my bills at the end of the month or send money via LINE Pay. Of the above accounts, I recommend using B/43 for entertainment and living expenses.

Increase motivation at Everyone's Bank.

Finally, we will introduce some recommended savings accounts.
That is " Minna no Bank ." Minna no Bank has the following three advantages.

You can create boxes in your account to sort your money.
Check the balance of other accounts
Debit cards can be used to pay for Amazon purchases (although many debit cards cannot be used).

You can see the balances of your other accounts by looking at your bank app.

In my case, I use Minna no Bank as a savings account, and since it also functions as one of the few debit cards that can be used with Amazon , I also use it as an expense account for my side job.

summary

To sum up, if you want to save money reliably, it's important to open multiple bank accounts for different expenses and live within the balances you deposit into each account.

The recommended apps are as follows:

・Notion : Track your income and expenses
・Miro : Visualize the flow of money
・Rakuten Bank : Automation
B/43 : Use it wisely
・Minna no Bank : Raise motivation

What do you think? I'm sure there are some of you who have thought that Money Forward is fine. If you can control yourself, then you'll be fine.

But if you've ever regretted not being able to control yourself, then I highly recommend you try this method. I really wish I'd known about this method in my first year of working life!

Click here for a list of Notion templates available on "Notion in Life" !