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Budget like a pro using Money Manager

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Create a budget to reach your savings goals


Follow along as we use different Money Manager features to create your budget and help you reach your goals in just 5 steps. After setting it up, we’ll do the heavy lifting for you. Just set a regular reminder to check-in and make sure you’re still on track.

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It’s available to Coast Capital members right in Coast Online® Banking and the Coast Mobile® Banking app and is free to use.

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What we’ll take you through

 Click on the links below to skip straight to the step.



Step 1 - Accounts

Link your external accounts

To accurately budget, you need to account for all your finances, even at different institutions. Linking your external accounts allows you to view all your transactions in the Money Manager. For best results, you’ll need to link it all: your chequing accounts, savings accounts, credit cards, investments, loans, mortgages and more.

Follow along with our video or check out our step-by-step instructions to learn how to use the Accounts feature.

  1. Log in to digital banking and open Money Manager by tapping Money Tools then Money Manager from the main menu.
  2. From the right menu, tap Add an Account to open the Accounts feature.
  3. Search for a financial institution by its name or URL.
  4. Select the institution from the list and enter the requested login credentials.
  5. Depending on your institution, you may need to regularly update your connection if your credentials have changed or any multi-factor authentication is required, like a verification code or security phrase.

Tip: Having trouble connecting your institution?  Submit feedback to us with your institution name and we will look into updating our connection.

Step 2 - Transactions

Review your transaction history and subscriptions

We’ll automatically categorize your transactions, but to make the feature more specific, you can customize your transaction history at any time to however you like.

Later on, we’ll walk through creating an auto-budget based on these transactions, so take a few minutes to make sure it’s customized to your preferences.

Follow along with our video or check out our step-by-step instructions to learn how to use the Transactions feature.

  1. From the Money Manager menu, tap Transactions to open the Transactions feature.
  2. Tap the date period at the top of the page and change the date selection to Last 90 Days.
  3. At the top of the page you may see a red question mark with a number of transactions that weren’t automatically categorized. Tap this box to show the uncategorized transactions.
  4. In the category column, tap the category to recategorize each transaction.
  5. Finish categorizing your transactions for the 90 day period. Your changes will be reflected across all features in Money Manager
Tip: There are more things you can do in the transactions tab, like viewing subscriptions, further modifying transactions, and searching, filtering and exporting transaction listings. Check out our support page for more information.

Step 3 - Spending

Review your spending

The Spending feature is a visual representation of your categorized transactions to show you where your money is going. This helps you better understand your spending and look for opportunities where you can adjust your behaviour or budgets to make sure you’re still on track.

Follow along with our video or check out our step-by-step instructions to learn how to use the Spending feature.


  1. From the Money Manager menu, tap Spending to open the Spending feature.
  2. At the top of the page, tap the date period and specify the date range you want to analyze.
  3. Tap the Account(s) dropdown to choose which accounts you want to include.
  4. Tap on a section of the wheel to see how much you spent in each category.
    • If your spending in a category is below 3% of your overall spending, it will show with other low-spending categories in a group called “Other”.
  5. Tap on any category to see a breakdown of spending by subcategory, like how much of your Food & Dining spending is on groceries versus restaurants.
  6. Tap on any subcategory, or on the centre of the spending wheel, to see the transactions associated with it.
    • From this view, you can also edit the transaction details just like in the main Transactions feature.
  7. To return to the main spending wheel, tap the blue arrow in the corner, or in the gray area outside of the Transactions view.
  8. To see a breakdown of your income in Money Manager, tap the Income tab above the category listings.

Tip: To see a longer term breakdown of your spending, check out the Trends widget as well. See our support page or tutorial video to learn more about it.

Step 4 – Budgets

Create your budget

Creating a budget is probably the most important financial management step as it helps you set realistic spending and savings goals. Money Manager will auto-populate a budget for you based on your previous spending—you can fine-tune it as needed. Once you create your budget, check back regularly to make sure you’re on track, and reallocate budgets if need be.

Follow along with our video or check out our step-by-step instructions to learn how to use the Budgets feature.

  1. From the Money Manager menu, tap Budgets to open the Budgets feature.
  2. To start, we recommend you use the Auto-generate Budgets feature, which will create budgets based on your average spending over the last two months.
  3. From there, review your generated budgets and adjust them if necessary by tapping Edit Budget and changing the amount. You can even add sub-budgets within a category by tapping a budget, then Add New Sub-Budget and the sub-category you want to create.
  4. You can decide which categories you do and do not want included in your budget. If a category was added during auto-generation that you do not want in your budget, you can delete it by tapping the budget, tapping Edit Budget, and then Delete.

Tips:

  • The auto-generated budgets feature works best if you have linked your external accounts (Step 1) and have reviewed the categorization of the last 2 months’ spending (Step 2).
  • If you end up deciding to recategorize your transactions, you can recalculate your budget by tapping Add New Budget, then scrolling to the bottom and tapping Recalculate Budgets.

About the bubbles

  • Bubble budgets allow you to see both the health and the impact of your budget categories quickly.
  • The larger the bubble, the more of your income it takes up. The color of each budget indicates whether you are on track, nearing your budget limit, or over limit:
    • Green = below 80%
    • Yellow = between 80-100%
    • Red = over 100%

To view details and transactions:

  1. Tap on the budget you want to dig in to and bring up the budget details window.
  2. Tap on Transactions to bring up the list of transactions in that category for the current month.
  3. Finally, tap Add New Budget at the top of the screen and you can see what income will be remaining after your budgeted spending is removed. Take note of this amount for the next step.

Tip: Not a fan of the bubble view? You can also view your budget as a list. Just tap the List View icon

Step 5 - Goals

Set your savings goals

Now that you’ve set up a budget, use the Goals feature to track your savings goals. Whether you’re saving for a car, school, your first home, a vacation or whatever else you can dream up, financial goals require long-term planning. The Goals feature helps you plan these goals and visualize their progress on a simple timeline. Not sure where to start? A good first step is to build your emergency savings in the event of an emergency, like a car or home repair.

After setting up your budget, take a look at your income that hasn’t been accounted for yet. Subtract about 20% to give yourself some breathing room, then allocate the leftover amount to your savings goals. For example, if you’re projected to have $1000 unaccounted for, subtract 20% for your buffer and you have $800 remaining to put towards your savings goals.

Before you start: Because Goals tracks your progress by comparing an account balance in relation to your goal, it’s best to have a separate account for each goal. Try opening a High-Interest Savings Account and nicknaming it with the name of your goal. Learn how.

  1. From the Money Manager menu, tap Goals.
  2. Tap the “+” button, then select Savings as your goal type.
  3. Select a specific type of savings goal from the list.
  4. Give it a name that represents your goal and set the amount you’d like to save.
  5. Tap Select an Account, then tap the account you created for this goal and finally tap
  6. Create any other savings goals you may have.

Now that you’ve created your goals, it’s time to enter your contribution amounts

  1. Tap Manage Goals and input the monthly contribution you plan to make towards your savings goals.
  2. Set up a recurring, automatic transfer to your first goal’s savings account the day after your payroll is direct deposited.


Tips:

  • If you’re paid biweekly, to figure out your biweekly contribution amount just follow this simple calculation: Multiply your monthly contribution by 12 to get your yearly amount, then divide that by 26 weeks to get your biweekly contribution. Set your transfer up for that amount. Learn more about automatic transfers and direct deposit.
  • Have more than one savings goal?  Money Manager lets you prioritize your goals so once you’ve achieved your first goal, the contribution amount will be applied to the second-highest priority and so on.  Be sure to update any automatic transfers once you’ve celebrated your success.

You’re done!


Remember to set a regular reminder to check in on your spending, make sure you’re still within your budget and track to meet your savings goals. If something unexpected comes up, you can always move some money around in your budgets. After all, it’s your budget and sometimes things don’t always go as planned. Keep with it and you’ll see results.

Let’s build the right plan, together

Our team of experts will find the right solutions for you and your goals.
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