Kakeibo: why a century-old method is the key to saving money in 2026

There are various reasons why you might have ended up in this article: maybe you already know the kakeibo (or kakebo) method and you are curious to see what’s cooking over here. Otherwise, maybe you want to start saving up money and you are surfing the web looking for the ultimate solution to all your liquidity problems and the path to those expensive holidays. Or maybe, just maybe, your cat jumped on your keyboard while you were on Google and you ended up here. Either way, relax and keep reading because this might interest you.

That said, a warning: this is not about a new app (with subscription, obviously) that connects to your three banks, analyzes your expenses with a state-of-the-art AI and predicts that if you skip that burger you’ll be able to buy a house in 6 years and 3 months instead of in 7. For this, you only need paper and a pen. And some discipline.

Kakeibo literally means “household account book”, and it’s a method invented and popularized by Japan’s first female journalist, Motoko Hani, in 1904. It’s a system based on methodically recording every expense in order to be aware of where the money goes, reflect on consumption patterns and turn bad habits into better ones.

It doesn’t have complex mathematical formulas or extensive rituals but it does have something key: friction.

Rather than automating everything and crunching data, it’s designed to be entirely manual. Do you buy something? You write it down in the kakeibo. Do you subscribe to a new streaming service? You write it down in the kakeibo. Did you get paid (finally)? You write it down in the kakeibo. Every expense involves the manual act of writing it down and that makes you be totally aware of your expenses, something we have lost to the ease of tapping your phone on the card reader and hearing that beep before a second has even passed.

Each month starts with planning. You write down the income (salary, invoicing, gifts), the fixed expenses (mortgage, rent, gym) and, optionally, a savings goal. Putting that together, you have the money available for the month. Now, every time you spend some money, or at the end of the day (or week, although I don’t recommend it) you write it down in the corresponding place and assign it one of these four categories: needs, wants, culture or unexpected (the names vary according to the source, but the essence is the same).

When the month ends, it’s time to pull out the calculator, add things up and group them together. Just with this you’ve done a lot: you know how much you have spent, how much you have finally saved and, above all, you have spent some time observing your expenses. You know how much you have dedicated to whims, how much you needed to survive and how much life has thrown at us. Now you just need to reflect a little on that to know what you would like to happen next month, where to cut back and where you are happy to invest your money. The next month works in the same way, but with the benefit of awareness and previous reflection.

There is no magic, it’s simply awareness and discipline. As the months go by, you regain control over your expenses and a clearer picture of them, you can go back to see your evolution, find patterns and set your goals. In the end, the kakeibo becomes a part of your life, always in your head when you buy something, like Jiminy Cricket trying to make you think twice before swiping the card.

Not everything is perfect, of course. I think it’s a very personal method, because after all it’s extremely simple and puts all the weight on the person who executes it. You can keep a meticulous record of all your expenses, a perfect categorization and never miss a cent, but if you don’t pay attention to your habits, if you don’t spend time reflecting, the method becomes useless. On the other hand, if you don’t get used to updating the kakeibo daily, you can fall into the trap of accumulating expenses, until the pile is so big that you simply give up.

And how do I put it into practice?

The best thing is that you only need a notebook and a pen. Dedicate a page or two to the planning of the month, then another page per week (or the format that best suits you) to record your expenses and finally a generous space where you can go crazy calculating totals, grouping expenses and, in short, reflecting on the month. You don’t have to follow a rigid structure, just follow your instincts and write down what you need, however you need.

If so much freedom overwhelms you, you can buy a notebook already made for this, I’m sure your local bookstore will have one if you ask for kakeibo or kakebo. In Spain I recommend the edition of Blackie Books, which I have used for several years and that is a pleasure to use.

Finally, if you lean more towards a middle point between those two options, I have to recommend Kakeibo, the app that I have built in order to bring the simplicity of the method to the digital medium, while trying hard to maintain its essence. For less than half the price of a month of Netflix you will have everything I have told you in the palm of your hand. No subscriptions, no connections to banks, just you and your expenses, with a minimalist and carefully designed interface that helps you keep everything under control.