SpendLens: How much do I really need?

Before you can plan your retirement income, you need to know what your life actually costs. Most people guess, and most people guess wrong. And the number that matters isn't even today's cost of living: it's your future one, without the mortgage repayments, the work expenses, and everything else that stops at retirement.

This is where SpendLens comes in. It gives you that number: your true cost of living, today and in retirement, read from your own real spending rather than a guess. In the Analysis tab, switch off the categories that won't follow you into retirement, and you're left with what your future life will actually cost.

But it goes further than spending. For those with share portfolios, SpendLens also helps you work out how much cash your investments will generate in retirement. From those same statements it builds a picture of your investments:

• Your accounts, super, and shareholdings in one place

• Buys and sells read straight from your statements by the trade parser, no manual entry

• Your whole portfolio valued with live market prices, dividends automatically matched to their ticker

• Your real return on investment, with the effects of your trading stripped out, so you can see how your investments are truly performing rather than how your buying and selling makes them look. I don't know of another app that shows you this.

Spending tells you what retirement costs; your portfolio tells you what's funding it. SpendLens gives you both.

Using it is simple. Load your CSV or PDF bank statements and SpendLens automatically categorises every transaction and analyses your spending patterns, while the trade parser picks up your buys and sells along the way. Not sure yet? SpendLens comes preloaded with sample data, so you can explore every feature before touching a single statement of your own.

Now, the question you should be asking: is it safe to put my bank statements into this?

Yes, and here's why: your statements never leave your computer. Everything (reading, categorising, analysing) happens entirely in your browser, on your device. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored on any server, and nobody, can ever see your data. Close the tab and it's gone.

Don't take my word for it: disconnect from the internet before you load your statements. SpendLens works exactly the same offline, because there's nothing for it to send. I'd encourage every first-time user to try it that way, it's the strongest privacy proof there is.

Two optional features need an internet connection if you choose to use them, and you control both. AI categorisation, if you switch it on, sends cleaned vendor names only: no amounts, no dates, no account details. Live portfolio pricing sends ticker symbols only. Neither ever sees your transactions or balances, and both are off unless you choose them.

For best results, load at least one full year of statements.

Free to use, no sign-up, no ads. Part of The Long Weekend Plan toolkit alongside PlanLens and PensionLens.

© 2026 Mark Murphy. All rights reserved. PensionLens, PlanLens, and SpendLens are part of The Long Weekend Plan.