reference urban life · expenses · ontology · India
The Urban Expense Ontology: Every Kind of Thing You Spend Money On
A complete map of every category of spending that flows through an urban life in a typical week. Food, drinks, transport, bills, subscriptions, people, impulses — and the ones nobody ever names.
moneytyping / 30-second cashpad⏱ 8 min readreference guide
Most financial tools want you to categorize your spending before you understand it. Choose Food & Beverage. Choose Transport. Choose Entertainment. The category comes first, the experience comes second, and the truth gets filed away somewhere in between. Before you can categorize anything honestly, you need a complete picture of what actually flows through an urban life. This is that picture.
What follows is not a budget template. It is a naming exercise — a map of every kind of expense that a person living in a city might encounter in an ordinary week. Some of these you track. Most of these you forget. A few of them you've never named at all. Naming them is the first act of financial consciousness.
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Food
The category that bleeds into every other category
Groceries & provisions
Vegetables, dal, rice, oil, eggs, bread. The planned shop.
"₹2,500 gym monthly. went 8 times. need to go more."
Grooming & salon
Haircut, threading, waxing, manicure.
"₹600 haircut. overdue by 3 weeks. feels good."
Dental
Cleaning, fillings, orthodontics.
"₹1,200 dental cleaning. twice a year. keeping it."
Medical emergencies
Unexpected treatments, hospital visits, family health.
"₹20,000 to martin. his son surgery. argh. love."
👥
People Money
The category nobody tracks — and everyone feels
Gifts
Birthdays, weddings, festivals, new babies.
"₹2,000 gift for Priya. she'll love it. happy."
Dining with others
Picking up the bill, splitting, treating someone.
"₹3,400 dinner for 4. I paid. no regrets."
Family transfers
Money sent home, parents, siblings, relatives in need.
"₹15,000 to amma. monthly. not optional. love."
Domestic help
Maid, cook, driver, nanny, plumber, electrician.
"₹3,500 maid monthly. Geeta. reliable. worth it."
Social obligations
Wedding contributions, office collections, society events.
"₹500 office farewell collection. didn't know them well."
Loans given
Money lent to friends, family — often never tracked.
"₹5,000 to Rahul. he'll pay back. probably."
🛍️
Shopping & Things
Objects, impulses, and the things you don't need until you do
Clothing & footwear
Myntra, Ajio, Zara, local markets.
"₹1,800 t-shirts myntra. sale. needed some. mostly."
Electronics & gadgets
Earbuds, cables, accessories, the upgrade.
"₹2,499 earbuds amazon. old ones died. good excuse."
Books & courses
Physical books, Kindle, Udemy, online learning.
"₹499 udemy course. will I finish it? probably not."
Home goods
Cleaning supplies, kitchen items, small appliances.
"₹680 IKEA. storage boxes. finally organized."
The impulse purchase
Amazon at midnight. The thing you didn't plan.
"₹1,200 random amazon. don't remember deciding this."
Personal care products
Skincare, toiletries, haircare.
"₹890 Nykaa order. 3 things I actually needed."
📈
Investments & Savings
Money moving forward — and the emotion that goes with it
SIPs & mutual funds
Monthly systematic investments, index funds.
"₹10,000 SIP. auto. boring. essential. good."
Stocks & ETFs
Direct equity, US stocks, ETFs.
"SOXL 47.80. feels like it'll jump today. let's see."
Insurance premiums
Life, health, vehicle insurance. Annual or monthly.
"₹12,000 health insurance annual. non-negotiable."
Emergency fund
Deliberate savings set aside for the unexpected.
"₹5,000 to emergency fund. feels responsible. good."
❓
The Unnamed Ones
Every budget misses these. moneytyping catches them.
The emotional spend
The purchase that happened because of a feeling, not a need.
"₹1,800 shoes. had a bad meeting. retail therapy. aware."
The forgotten subscription
The one you cancelled in your head but not in the app.
"₹299 LinkedIn premium. when did I even subscribe. cancelling."
The fee you didn't see coming
Bank charge, processing fee, late payment, ATM fee.
"₹500 HDFC charge. what is this. investigating."
The rounding-up spend
"While I'm here..." The add-on that wasn't the plan.
"₹340 extra at pharmacy. grabbed snacks too. classic."
The convenience tax
Paying more to save time. Delivery fee, express service.
"₹149 delivery fee. lazy. quick. honest."
The guilt spend
Something for someone else, motivated by not having been present.
"₹800 gift for mom. missed her birthday last month. guilt."
· · ·
This is what a week looks like when you lay it out flat. Food bleeding into transport bleeding into subscriptions bleeding into people money bleeding into the unnamed things that don't fit anywhere but show up on your statement anyway. No budget spreadsheet has a column for "guilt spend" or "convenience tax" or "the rounding-up moment." But your life does.
The purpose of naming all of this is not to make you feel overwhelmed — though you might be, briefly. The purpose is to make the invisible visible. You cannot type honestly about something you haven't named. You cannot see patterns in spending categories that don't exist in your vocabulary. This ontology is the vocabulary.
moneytyping doesn't ask you to pick from these categories. It asks you to type what happened, in your own words, at the moment it happened. Over time, your entries will reveal which of these categories dominate your week — not because an algorithm sorted them, but because you said it yourself, in plain language, before you had a chance to forget.
start here
moneytyping — 30-second cashpad
Open it after any of the expenses on this list — especially the unnamed ones. Type what happened. No categories required. The pattern will emerge in your own words. Free on iOS and Android.