How do I break a spending category down into lines?

A category such as day-to-day expenses or housing is easier to get right as a handful of lines than as one guess. Action Items asks you to break one down when it reads as an estimate, and the button on the item says Break this down.

1. Open Action Items and press Break this down on the item. While you are on Living expenses, you can also open the category from under it in the rail.
2. Fill in each line with what you actually pay. Leave a line empty if you have no such cost.
3. Choose a month or a year under each line, whichever matches how you pay it.
4. If you cannot look a line up, press Use typical under the empty box.
5. Check These add up to — the total a month.
6. Press Save breakdown.

The seven categories you can break down

City & Housing, Expenses (day-to-day), Healthcare, Household Help, Education, Lifestyle & Entertainment, and Travel.

What saving does

• The category’s figure in your plan becomes the sum of your lines. The result says so: the category was one amount a month and is now another, and every figure follows from that.
• If the category was spread over several rows, they are folded into one so nothing is counted twice.
• Your plan is re-run straight away — the button reads Saving and re-running your plan… while it works.

Reading each line

Each line carries a reading against what households like yours typically pay: Looks right, Worth a look, Worth reconsidering, or No comparison. A line can be typical and still too much for your household — the total gets its own reading against your income, and the two are kept apart on purpose.