Finding new and improved ways to budget and save your hard-earned dollars is usually at the top of the list for most working professionals, regardless of age and experience. Traditional money management applications can help you create budgets that allow you to track and balance your everyday spending and bill payments. But how you can begin saving money may not always be clear. That’s because the prioritization of saving money is often different for everyone depending on your needs and wants. While some might be saving money for retirement or property, others may have a big-ticket item in mind like a trip, car, or education, for example. It doesn’t matter what exactly you are saving for; but how you are going to reach that goal matters a great deal.

Wellspent is a money management app that asks you to reflect on each of your transactions to learn from your spending behaviours both good and bad. The concept of reflecting on your feelings may not seem like a way to save money, but recognizing your emotions is the first step towards making changes that will guide your ability to start saving. In this article, we explore all the features available to you in Wellspent and describe how each feature can contribute to your effort to save money for the things that matter most to you.

Here’s how it works:

Begin every transaction with reflection

Reflecting on your purchases in Wellspent means more than simply swiping left or right. This process requires you to check in with your feelings towards each of your transactions and make a conscious decision about whether or not the purchase brought you value. As you begin to build up your reflections, we’ll share data that shows you where you are feeling the most and least happy in your spending. This information will help you determine where you can change spending habits, and allow space for you to save more money and change the way you feel, too. The more you know about your feelings towards spending, the more you can adjust your budget and begin saving for the things that will bring joy to your life.

Find out how much you are spending by category

Each of your transactions will be auto-categorized for you, enabling you to view your spending by category. When you see how much money you are spending in each category, you will be able to determine where you can cut back and perhaps contribute some of that spending towards savings instead. The more you tag your purchases and reflect on them; the more Wellspent can present details on your spending behaviours and preferences by category. Use these learnings to help drive your decision-making when it comes to spending while paying close attention to where you are more likely to overspend and curb your habits accordingly.

Create custom tags to track your behaviours and preferences

Using custom tags is an essential part of personalizing and organizing your purchases. What you choose to tag on each purchase is entirely up to you, and you can add as many as you like to each transaction. Some common tags include things like #diningout #badhabits and #morningcoffee — but anything goes! Your tags will begin to populate data that can help set your transactions apart from their respective categories. Using tags for specific events and big-ticket items like wedding planning, vacations, and holiday gift-giving will help you track what you are spending, and assist you in saving for the future. By reviewing what you spent under a specific tag, you can determine if what you spent is more or less of what you would need to save for future spending of a similar nature. So while tagging can’t help you set funds aside; it can help you decide what a reasonable amount is to save based on your past behaviours and spending.

Learn how to ‘Do Better’ first

There is an opportunity to set goals for yourself in Wellspent in our ‘Do Better’ feature. Throughout your spending, Wellspent will prompt you with areas you can do better based on how you are reflecting in the app. When you decide to do better with your spending, you are making the decision to improve or change behaviour in the future. Not making a change could negatively impact your ability to save money because you will still be regretfully spending. It may not seem like you are aiding in your effort to save, but it’s important to remember that any positive changes you are willing to make when it comes to better spending habits are actions you are taking towards saving money.

Review all of your spendings at a glance — and take notes!

In addition to all of the features above, reviewing your spending all in once place will be an essential part of your money-saving plans. The spending overview in Wellspent enables you to see how much you have spent for the last seven, fourteen, and thirty days. These insights will help you understand how your spending has changed over time, and the graphs provided will divide your happy, sad and neutral purchases in each time frame. Reviewing all of this information at a glance will help you spot the areas you could improve in and allow you to adjust savings plans accordingly. It can also help you track your current spend to ensure you aren’t compromising future savings goals.

Start saving money today, download the Wellspent app.

This article offers general information only and is not intended as legal, financial or other professional advice. A professional advisor should be consulted regarding your specific situation. While information presented is believed to be factual and current, its accuracy is not guaranteed and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. All expressions of opinion reflect the judgment of the author(s) as of the date of publication and are subject to change.  No endorsement of any third parties or their advice, opinions, information, products or services is expressly given or implied by Royal Bank of Canada or its affiliates.