How to make a student budget from your bank statement
Budgeting starts with knowing where the money went, and a bank statement already holds the answer. Choose a statement file from your banking app or website and this page sorts every payment into plain categories: rent, groceries, eating out, transport, bills, subscriptions, shopping, cash, transfers and other. It shows the total for each category, the total for each month and a chart of both, so a term's spending fits on one screen.
Where did my money go? Fix the guesses
Categories come from words in each description, such as a supermarket's name for groceries or a train company for transport. The words are a guess, so every payment is listed with a menu: move a row and the totals and chart update straight away. Money coming in, such as a student loan, wages or a refund, is shown separately and is not counted as spending. Download the sorted rows as CSV to keep working in a student budget spreadsheet in Excel or Google Sheets.
Student budget tips from your own numbers
A budget worksheet is easier to fill in once the statement is already sorted, and the summary works as a free spending tracker without an app: this page does the sorting with no account and no bank login. It works on a phone, so it can be used in an appointment or a workshop with the student's own statement, and the sample statements show how it works without anyone's real data.
- Compare this month with last month to see which category grew.
- Look at eating out, subscriptions and shopping first: they are the easiest to change.
- Use the subscription finder to list every regular payment and its yearly cost.
Your statement stays on your device
The file is read and sorted in your browser. Nothing is uploaded to DocFig or anyone else, nothing is stored after you close the page, and the page sends only tiny counters with an event name. How to check this yourself.
In England, GOV.UK says a Maintenance Loan is usually paid into your bank account at the start of each term, so a statement for a whole term shows that payment as money in and the term's spending against it. GOV.UK explains what student finance you can get.
Banks call their exports different things: CSV, spreadsheet, Excel or "download transactions". Any of them works. If you only have a PDF statement, the bank statement converter turns it into an Excel file first.