Weekly Plan: Financial Audit in 7 Days
This plan isn't about spending less. It's about looking at what you already have and finding out what it's costing you without your knowing: fees deducted internally, forgotten products, agreements never discussed, and open doors that let fraud in.
Seven short sessions. By the end you'll have a real picture of where you stand and a list of concrete decisions.
🎯 Plan rules
1. One review a day, none longer than thirty minutes.
2. Write down numbers, not impressions. "I pay quite a lot" is useless; "I pay US$340 a year" isn't.
3. Change nothing until day 7. First you measure, then you decide.
4. None of this is financial advice: it's for knowing what to ask.
Day 1 — Inventory
Make a list of everything you hold: accounts, cards, funds, pension plans, insurance, financial subscriptions, loans.
For each one, note the balance or approximate amount. Don't look for fees yet: just the map.
Today's action: if a product turns up that you'd forgotten about, flag it. There's usually at least one.
Day 2 — The total annual cost
Take the three products holding the most money and find their total annual cost: the percentage deducted each year, including custody and any other fee.
In European funds it appears in the key information document. Elsewhere, you have to ask.
Today's action: multiply that percentage by the balance. That number, in euros, is what you pay per year. Write it large.
Day 3 — The small fees
Now the ones that look like nothing: account maintenance, card fees, currency conversion costs on purchases or trips, transfers.
Go through the last three months of transactions and look for any charge from the provider itself.
Today's action: add them all and multiply by four for the year. Many are avoidable by switching products or meeting conditions nobody explained to you.
Day 4 — The questions to ask
Don't change anything yet. Prepare the questions.
For each expensive product, write: "what is the total annual cost, including custody and any other fee?" The answer should be a number, not an explanation.
And if the product is actively managed, add: "has it beaten its benchmark over the last ten years?"
Today's action: send those questions in writing or book an appointment. Having the answer in writing matters.
Day 5 — The overdue conversation
If you share finances with someone, today is the day. Half an hour, unhurried, and one topic only.
Pick the one that's been postponed longest: how much each of you brings in, what debts exist, how shared expenses are split, or what would happen if one of you stopped earning.
Today's action: agree on the consult threshold: the amount above which you talk before spending. Below it, each decides without explanation. It's the agreement that prevents the most arguments.
If you manage your finances alone, spend today writing what you'd do if your income stopped for three months.
Day 6 — Closing doors to fraud
Review the ways it gets in:
- Do you have two-factor authentication on banking and email?
- Do you know your bank's official number, saved in your contacts?
- Does an older person in your life know their bank never asks for passwords or for money to be moved to a "safe account"?
Today's action: adopt the 24-hour rule — no financial decision on the same day it's proposed — and say it out loud to someone so they can hold you to it.
Day 7 — Deciding
Now you can. Go back over the six sets of notes and answer:
1. Which product do I switch or transfer? Check the conditions first, and whether the transfer has a tax cost.
2. Which fee do I cancel? Account and card fees are usually negotiable or avoidable.
3. Which conversation do I repeat, and when? Put a date in the calendar.
4. What do I leave as it is? That's a decision too, and now it's an informed one.
After the week
This doesn't repeat every month. Schedule:
- Fee review: once a year.
- Money conversation: twice a year.
- The 24-hour rule: permanent, no exceptions.
What gets scheduled happens. What gets remembered doesn't.