How to categorize expenses

Keep a set that fits your spending

To categorize expenses in SavingStat, keep a category set that fits how you spend and check the labels that imports propose. You do not start from an empty list. Setup offers a set of default categories, and you keep the ones that match; renaming one or changing its emoji is safe, because your name is stored against your own link to it.

Fewer, broader labels usually read better than many narrow ones. A category earns its place by being one you will actually ask about later.

Let imports categorize expenses first

Every imported bank statement row and photographed receipt arrives with a category already suggested, so you are not filing each purchase by hand; you are checking work that has already been done.

Fix what lands wrong

During review, change the category on any draft before you publish it. A published transaction is not locked either: open the expense and edit it to move it under the right label.

The Category tab in Stats collects everything unlabelled into one Uncategorized slice, so that tab is the natural place to spot what slipped through.

A category and a budget on one purchase

One transaction carries both a category and a budget. They answer different questions. The category says what the money was for. The budget says which shared space it belongs to. A grocery run can be labelled Groceries and sit inside a Household budget you share with someone.

Archive categories instead of deleting them

When a category stops being useful, archive it. It drops out of the list you pick from and stops being suggested on imported rows, while every expense already filed under it keeps its label. Deleting goes further. Your old expenses stay, but they lose the label, and that money reads as unlabelled from then on.