My Simple Solution for Total Financial Management | Money Mastery Pro | Notion

I have to say it. Managing our finances can be really boring. No one really wants to spend time filling the tax forms or calculating the compounded annual growth rate on their investments. So what do we do instead? We focus on small, easy wins, like skipping the morning coffee or parking two blocks away to save a few dollars. I am not saying, they don't help, but in the global scheme of things, they don't really make much of a difference.

I was no different. I knew it was no fun task, but I always wanted to have better control over my finances. But just like the majority, I was always overwhelmed and was not sure where to start. And my situation didn't help. I travel a lot, so I have irregular expenses that I often share with others. I also have multiple investments in different countries with various brokers. So it was always a struggle to get a clear and complete overview of my finances.

I tried different tools, but they were either too complicated or time-consuming. And most tools do just one task well, like either budgeting or investments, but not both. Plus, they were expensive. I needed a solution that fit my individual needs, something I could tailor to my lifestyle. So I decided to develop a system myself using the free tool called Notion. Let me introduce you to Money Mastery, an easy-to-use template that completely changed how I think about financial management.

For those unfamiliar with Notion, it’s basically a simple note-taking app. But it also offers many additional features to plan and manage every area of our lives. I use it as my task manager, daily planner, content database, and more. It's so much part of my daily life that I spend more time on Notion than all my social media apps combined.

One of the key elements that make Notion so powerful is its vast collection of templates. These are predefined layouts that we can start using right away and customize to suit our needs. Money Mastery is one such template, that I designed to track my income, expenses, investments, taxes, and more. The best part? It’s simple to use, even for beginners who are just starting out with financial management.

So today, I’ll dive deep into the core features of this template and show you how you can adapt it to take control of your finances. So, let’s get started!

The template is organized into ten sections, and the most important one is the Dashboard page. This is the financial hub, where we can quickly get an overview of our various financial accounts and more. As we scroll down, there is a summary of the cash flow for the current month and year. Below that, there’s a detailed view of income and expenses, sorted neatly into categories. This makes it easy to track how much money is coming in and going out. Then there is also a detailed breakdown of our investments so we can track their individual performance, and a goal tracker to monitor our financial goals.

Overall, this dashboard provides a complete view of our financial health.

Now, let’s move to the Budget page. This is the control center for managing our budget and ensuring that we stay within our financial means. Here we can see a detailed overview of how we’ve used our money for the current month. For each category, we can see the monthly budget limit, the total sum of expenses, the remaining balance, and even a percentage graph to visually track our spending progress.

Now, let’s move on to the Subscriptions page. According to recent research, the average American has 4.5 subscriptions and pays an average of $924 per year. Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, HBO and the list just goes on. With so many of them, it can be hard to keep track of what we are paying for and when. I once realized I was paying for a streaming service I hadn’t used in a year! So I wanted an overview and this page gave me an exact overview of it.

Here, I can see all my monthly subscriptions with details such as price, amount due, and the days left to pay. There is a similar view for my yearly subscriptions.

Now, let’s move to the next important section: Investments. I’ve invested in a lot of assets, including stocks, ETFs, Gold, Crypto, Mutual funds, and others. And they are spread over different platforms. So it was always difficult to get a complete overview. And without that, it was difficult to know which investments were worth keeping and which ones I should discard. That changed once I started using this template. The Investments page gives me a quick snapshot of my entire portfolio, showing the amount I have invested in each asset.

There is also a more detailed breakdown of investments into categories, subcategories, industries, and companies. This makes it easy to track the performance of specific sectors and to know how well I have diversified my investments. But that's not it. When I click on any investment, I can see every transaction that I’ve made related to that particular one.

And finally, there’s a list view that shows the returns on my investments, so I can easily see which ones are giving me the best returns.

Finally, I have everything I need from my investments in one place.

Another complicated topic when it comes to financial management is taxes. Tax filing time used to be a real headache for me. But now, I can do my taxes in just a few hours, thanks to the overview I get from the Taxes page. This page organizes all my taxable income, expenses that are eligible for tax deductions or refunds, and capital gains. So I can just take over the values from here to the appropriate tax forms. It simplifies the entire process and saves me a lot of stress and time.

But the section that I use the most in this template is the Data page. This is where I feed all the necessary data to keep the system running. It starts with the cash flow, both income and expenses, as well as various financial transactions, such as transferring funds between accounts or paying a credit card bill. For each entry, you’ll need to provide some additional details, such as the date of the transaction, the amount, the category, and even specifics like the person involved in the transaction, tax relevance, and more.

There is also a section to update all the data related to my investments such as number of units, current price, returns, etc. We can also record the transactions related to these investments such as buying, selling, transferring, or receiving units.

Additionally, we can set budget limits for each expense category and there are also provisions to manage and track our subscriptions and financial goals. Overall, the data page is the central point of entry for all data that goes into the template.

Now there is no shortage of analysis and data in this template, but for those who want more, there is the report page. It shows all our expenses and income over the past weeks, months, and even years. One of my favorite features on this page is the percentage view for expenses. This is especially useful for identifying high-cost items that empty our pockets every month and then focusing on cutting them down.

There’s also a section dedicated to providing detailed information about our investments, so we can track their performance over time and make informed decisions.

Now personal finance is nothing if not personal. Everyone's goals and priorities are different. So what I have designed here may not work for you. So If you want to customize the template to suit your specific needs, the configuration section is the place to go. Here, you can add new bank accounts, and investments, or even create custom expense and income categories that fit your individual financial situation.

This section is also the back end of the template, storing all the databases that power the different features of this system. This section is especially important when you’re setting up the template for the first time.

Finally, the help page. This is the place to be if you have any questions about the template. You can find detailed instructions on using the template, some FAQs, and links to contact me if you have any queries.

So those were the main parts of the template. Now let's talk about how to use it. To access the Notion template, the first thing you need is a Notion account. If you don't have one already, don't worry - it's fast and easy to set up and can be done totally free of cost. Once you're all signed up, go to my website and get the template. You can find the link in the description below.

Once you have access to the template, click on the three dots in the top right corner of the template, click "Duplicate," and select your notion workspace where you want this template to be duplicated.

Now head over to the Start Here page. To make it easier for you, I’ve created this onboarding guide that walks you through the template with a series of simple tasks spread over 10 days.

This guide will teach you how to set up your accounts, create budget categories and limits, add investments, set financial goals, track subscriptions, and taxes, and everything that you need to know about using this template.

The setup only needs to be done once, and then you’ll just need to make small adjustments every few months. However, what you’ll need to do daily or regularly is update your income, expenses, and investment data using the data page.

To add a new income entry, click the “New” button in the top right corner of the income database and enter details like the date, source, and amount. Same thing for expenses. Create a new entry and enter details such as name, type, category, date, and final amount. Similarly, for investments, you can update the dynamic data such as yield, current price, returns, and other relevant details. And if you buy or sell investments, make sure to log those transactions in the Investment Transactions database.

To make it even easier to input data, I have placed quick access buttons to quickly add a transaction or expense. There are also navigation buttons that allow you to move around the template effortlessly with just a few clicks.

But no feature will help to solve one of the most common issues people face when they start using financial management systems. The initial excitement will die off at some point and we lose motivation after a few days.

And all these systems only work if we use them consistently and input data. This comes back to the point I talked about in the first part of this blog. Financial management is not fun. So I thought to myself, how can I make this interesting so that I or someone would want to keep using the template, and that led me to redesign the template to gamify the entire process.

In this template, every user is assigned an individual level in three categories: Expense Tracking, budgeting, and investing. For example, if you regularly track your expenses for 100 days in a year, you’ll reach the level of Warrior.

Similarly, levels are assigned based on how well you stick to your budget each month and how much money you’ve invested. The dashboard page shows you your current level, along with insights on what you need to do to reach the next one. Plus, there are regular messages that remind you to stay on budget and invest regularly.

It took me over a year to create this template. My goal was to build a system that’s easy and fun to use still providing all the necessary features for complete financial management. You can get this template with its full set of features for an introductory price of 49 Euros. For someone who wants to start tracking their expenses and do basic budgeting, I also made a basic version for 29 euros. Initially, I thought of giving it for free but later decided against it.

We are more likely to use a product or service that we’ve purchased rather than something we got for free. And if you use this template regularly, it will save you ten times more money in a short time. But still, if you have been using the template regularly and not seeing the results or think it's not something for you, I will offer you a full refund. Also If there is someone who can't afford this, just write me an email, and I'll send the template for free. But I totally believe it is a fair price to pay for the benefits it brings.

Imagine waking up every day feeling totally confident about your financial future. Money’s no longer something that stresses you out—it’s a tool that helps you live the life you’ve always dreamed of. You’ve got more time and energy to focus on what really matters—whether that’s spending time with loved ones, chasing your passions, or just enjoying the peace that comes with financial security. This Notion template can help you get there, just like it did for me. I hope it serves you well on your journey to financial freedom.

Disclaimer: The Content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. It is important to do your own analysis before making any investment.