Liora Vantis
Budget review writer. Obsessively practical about personal finance.
I started writing about budgets after spending three years making the same mistakes - tracking spending in spreadsheets that I never actually reviewed. The gap between logging numbers and understanding them was where most of my financial decisions went wrong. That gap is what this blog is about.
My writing focuses on the budget review process specifically - not general savings advice, not investment strategy, just the monthly and quarterly ritual of sitting down with your actual numbers and figuring out what they mean.
How I approach a budget review
A budget review is not about finding where you failed. It is about understanding what actually happened and deciding what to do differently.
Most people skip the review entirely or treat it as a punishment exercise. I write about it as a decision-making tool - one that works best when it is short, honest, and consistent. The steps below reflect how I structure my own monthly reviews and what I have found actually sticks over time.
Pull the real numbers
Before any analysis, I export transactions from my bank and card statements into a single spreadsheet. No estimates, no memory - only what actually happened. This step usually takes about 20 minutes and is the only one where I resist the urge to interpret anything.
Compare against the plan
I put actual spending next to the budget I set at the start of the month. The goal is not to feel bad about overruns - it is to see which categories drifted and by how much. A RM 40 grocery overage tells a different story than a RM 200 one.
Adjust the next period
The review only earns its time if it changes something going forward. I update category limits based on what I learned, flag any irregular expenses coming up, and carry forward any surplus with a specific purpose rather than letting it disappear.
The review session itself rarely takes more than 30 minutes when the data is already organised.
Reviewing my budget monthly changed how I make spending decisions mid-month, not just at the end of it.
- Liora Vantis