Money short before payday? Go through last month’s slips
1. Why a rule needs your own numbers
When your pay runs out before payday, the usual advice is a rule: split your pay 50/30/20, or follow a plan someone made for a 15,000-baht salary. A rule starts from your pay. It can’t show where your own month went.
In its 2024 survey of 12,558 households, the Bank of Thailand gives Thai households a score of 86.6 for keeping a close eye on their money and 47.3 for planning money before spending it. The OECD average for planning is 63.2 (Bank of Thailand and National Statistical Office, 2024 survey report, in Thai).
A plan starts from your own month: what it cost and where the money went. Last month’s slips already hold those numbers.
2. Add last month’s slips and cash
Open Add, then Scan slips. The first time, tap Allow photo access under Find your slips. In Find slips, choose Custom, set last month’s dates and read the slips it finds. If one is missing, tap Choose photos and pick it yourself. Anything the app isn’t sure of is marked Needs review, and a slip you’ve already added is skipped.
After the first slips are read, the app asks which account is yours. Choose your own. Money it sent then counts as spending, and money it received as money in. Until you choose, those slips aren’t counted in your totals.
Cash leaves no slip, so open Add, then Enter manually, and type what you paid. Add your pay the same way, as Income: it’s counted as income, not spending. How to save money in Thailand goes through both step by step.
3. See which days the money went out
On Home, tap the month at the top and choose last month. Months in Slip Tracker run from the 1st to the last day of the month. You see what you spent that month, and Daily spending shows a bar for each day.
The tall bars are the days the money went out, such as rent day or a big grocery run. The short ones are the small payments of an ordinary day.
4. See what you spent the most on
Open Summary and go to last month. Categories shows what took the most, such as rent, food and drinks or groceries. Switch to Merchants to see the shops and people you paid the most.
Each row also shows its change from the month before, such as ฿1,200 more, About the same or New. For a fuller look at one month, read Where did your money go this month?
5. Find your repeating payments
In Summary, open Repeating payments. It lists the payments that come back, such as rent, a phone bill or a subscription, with how often each one comes and what it usually costs.
It also shows the ones still to come this month, by day, so you can see them before payday. The list fills in as you record more months.
6. See how often you pay one shop
In Slips, search for a shop’s name. You see the payments you’ve saved to that shop and how many there are.
Small payments add up. A ฿45 snack on 20 working days is ฿900 a month.
7. Decide what’s worth it to you
Then decide what’s worth it to you. It might be a subscription you no longer use, or a shop you visit more often than you thought. It might be nothing at all. Slip Tracker shows the numbers. It doesn’t tell you what to cut.
Pick one thing to try next month, and look again when that month ends.
8. Keep an eye on this month
Back on Home, the line under this month’s total says how much more or less you’ve spent than on the same days last month.
Once you have two complete months with spending, Summary shows Month so far next to Breakdown. It compares what you’ve spent by today with what you usually spend by this day, such as Usually ฿18,400 by now. Your usual is the average of your last complete months, up to six. Month so far doesn’t appear before then.
If you’d like a range to compare with, open Settings, then Spending guides, and tap Set a guide. Choose Set an amount or Use usual spending, then Save guide. It’s a range to compare your month with, never a limit, and it never stops a payment. Slip Tracker then shows whether your month is within the range or above it.
To remember to add your slips, open Settings, then Reminders, and turn on Daily reminder. It comes once a day and never shows amounts or shop names.
9. What Slip Tracker doesn’t do
Slip Tracker is an expense tracker. It doesn’t tell you how much you can still spend, and it doesn’t guess how the month will end. It doesn’t hold or move money, and it never logs in to your bank, so it doesn’t know your balance.
It only counts what you add: the slips it reads and the cash and income you enter. A payment you don’t add isn’t in the totals. It shows the numbers, and what you change is up to you.
10. Common questions
Does Slip Tracker tell me how much I can still spend?
No. It shows what you’ve spent so far and how that compares with the same days last month. It doesn’t work out what you can still spend, and it doesn’t guess how the month will end.
Do I have to connect my bank account?
No. Slip Tracker has no bank login and no sign-up. It reads the slips saved on your phone and keeps your transactions on the phone, encrypted.
Does it count my cash?
Only the cash you add. Cash leaves no slip, so add it by hand: open Add, then Enter manually.
When does Month so far appear?
Once you have two complete months with spending. Until then, Home compares this month with the same days last month, as soon as last month’s payments are in.
11. Get Slip Tracker
Free on Android.
Android 8.0 or later iPhone coming soon