How to Find Spending Leaks With a 3-Receipt Rule

You know that moment when you open your banking app and both of you go quiet?

Like: “We didn’t do anything big this month… so why does it feel like our money evaporated?”

Tom’s first instinct is always: “We should cut stuff.”
My first instinct is: “Please don’t make our lives joyless because we bought iced coffee when we were tired.”

So we needed a way to find spending leaks that didn’t turn into a courtroom drama. Enter: the 3-Receipt Rule.

What we mean by “spending leaks”

Not fraud. Not “you’re bad with money.”

Leaks are the small, frequent, slightly invisible transactions that happen because you’re:

hungry and busy,
stressed and treating yourself,
avoiding a boring task (“I’ll deal with that subscription later”),
or doing the nice-couple thing (“Let’s just order in, we deserve it”).

They’re sneaky because individually they feel harmless—especially when prices rise. For example, U.S. consumer inflation for food away from home rose 7.1% in 2023 (CPI-U), which makes “just grabbing something” more expensive even if your habits don’t change (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditures 2023).

Also: money stress is real relationship stress. In Northwestern Mutual’s 2025 Planning & Progress Study, 57% of Americans who are married or living with a partner said financial uncertainty impacted their relationship, and 69% said it made them feel depressed and anxious (Northwestern Mutual, 2025 Planning & Progress Study).

So, yes: this is about spending. But it’s also about staying kind to each other.

The 3-Receipt Rule (the non-awkward version)

Once a week (we do Sunday), each of you brings three “telling” receipts/transactions—not the biggest ones, the most revealing ones.

Pick one from each bucket:

Convenience receipt: the thing you bought because you were tired/busy (delivery, taxi, last-minute anything).
Mood receipt: the thing you bought to feel better (snack spiral, “tiny treat,” impulse scrolling buy).
Forgotten receipt: the charge you didn’t actively choose that week (subscription, fee, auto-renew, app).

Then, for each receipt, answer two questions:

“What problem was I trying to solve?”
“Would we make the same choice again—if we planned for it?”

Important: this is not a purity test. It’s a pattern-finder.

A line we love from the CFPB is basically our whole philosophy: “Don’t edit your budget to reflect what you ‘could’ or ‘should’ be spending.” Look at what you actually do first (CFPB, “Assess your spending”). (They also note that about half of Americans don’t have a budget, which made us feel… less alone.)

Three ways couples can run it (pick your vibe)

1) The “separate receipts, shared lessons” method

You each pick your three receipts privately. Then you share them at the same time.

Best for: avoiding the “I watched your spending all week” dynamic.

Conversation starter:

“I’m not proud of this one, but it’s honest. Can we look at it like detectives, not judges?”

Tom thinks this keeps it fair. I think it keeps it safe.

2) The “receipt captain” rotation

One partner is the captain for the week. The captain doesn’t police—just collects themes and asks questions. Next week, swap.

Best for: when one person usually carries the mental load.

Captain script:

“I’m not here to fix you. I’m here to spot patterns so we can make this easier.”

3) The “household leak board” (team vs. problem)

Instead of “your receipt / my receipt,” you look for leaks that belong to the system:

default delivery apps,
no plan for busy nights,
subscriptions no one remembers,
“we’ll sort it later” admin.

Best for: couples who get defensive fast (hi, sometimes us).

Reframe phrase:

“This isn’t a character flaw. It’s a workflow issue.”

What to do when you disagree (because you will)

Here’s our most common disagreement:

Tom: “If it’s a leak, cut it.”
Me: “Or we admit it’s important and plan it properly.”

A middle-ground rule that helps:

Cut shame, not joy.
If something keeps showing up, choose one:
1. Reduce frequency (same thing, less often)
2. Replace (different solution to the same need)
3. Plan it (make it an intentional category instead of a surprise)

Try this sentence when you’re stuck:

“Are we trying to spend less, or are we trying to be less surprised?”

And if the real issue is visibility (it often is), a shared tracker helps because you’re finally looking at the same reality. That’s the whole point: fewer assumptions, fewer ‘Wait, we spent on what?’ moments. (This is why tools like Monee can feel like relationship therapy, but with charts.)

If this feels hard, start here

For the next week, don’t change anything. Just do this:

Each pick one convenience, one mood, one forgotten charge.
For each: name the “problem it solved.”
Agree on one tiny experiment for next week (reduce, replace, or plan it).