Most people track what they spend. Far fewer understand the patterns underneath. Expense categorization is the difference between a list of transactions and a financial picture you can actually use.
These webinar sessions are built around that gap — giving you structure, vocabulary, and practical methods for sorting your spending in ways that reveal something real.
6Live session formats
4Categorization frameworks
ABBeaumont, Canada
01
Fixed, variable, and the messy middle
Rent and phone bills are simple — they barely change month to month. The interesting part is the $80 spent on a home repair kit: is that an irregular fixed expense, a one-time necessity, or the beginning of a hobby?
This session works through real transaction examples from everyday Canadian budgets, building a decision framework for categorizing expenses that resist easy labels.
Defining fixed vs. committed vs. discretionary spending
Handling multi-purpose purchases without double-counting
Monthly vs. annualized category views
When to split one transaction into two categories
Participants in this session leave with a personal decision tree they can apply to any transaction — built during the session itself, not handed to them pre-made.
Generic budget templates list twelve categories and call it done. The problem is that a template built for someone else rarely reflects the shape of your spending — a car commuter and a transit user have almost nothing in common at the category level.
This session guides participants through designing their own category set: how many categories to use, what to group together, and how to check if a structure is actually working after 30 days.
Common category sets and where they break down
Designing categories around income type and life stage
How many categories is too many — and the cost of over-sorting
Testing a new structure against three months of past data
The session includes a live walkthrough using a sample data set — participants can follow along with their own spreadsheet or observe and adapt the method independently.
Sorted data is still just data until you know what questions to ask of it. A month where food spending doubled could mean a dinner party, a pantry restock, or a slow drift toward eating out more — the category total doesn't tell you which.
This session focuses on the analytical layer: how to compare categories across time, flag meaningful changes versus seasonal noise, and use categorized data to make an actual decision about something.
Month-over-month comparison without over-reacting to outliers
Identifying gradual category creep before it compounds
Connecting category data to specific financial goals
When to recategorize retroactively and when not to
Q&A runs through the second half of this session — participants bring real scenarios and the group works through them together under facilitated discussion.
