November is the month kakeibo was built for. Nothing much happens in it: no big holiday in most households, no gift season yet, the heating bills only beginning. That quiet is the point. A November kept well in the household ledger pays for a December that would otherwise be paid for in January.
Here is how to use the four questions in the one month of the year when they are easiest to answer, and how to make November carry some of December’s weight.
Ask the first question twice
Kakeibo opens every month with the same question: how much money do I have? In November, ask it for two months. Write the November figure as usual, income minus fixed costs. Underneath, write December’s, as best you can estimate it. Most households know December’s income already; what they rarely do is look at it in November.
The reason is simple. December’s spending starts in November, with the first gifts bought early, the travel booked, the food ordered. If December’s money is not on the page yet, those purchases are taken from November without anyone noticing, and November’s savings quietly disappear.
Save in November what December cannot
The second question, how much would I like to save, has a different answer in November than in any other month. Most households cannot save much in December. Kakeibo’s answer is not to give up on December’s saving but to move it.
Decide the household’s usual monthly savings figure, then add to November whatever December will not manage. If the normal amount is a set figure each month and December will manage half of it, November saves one and a half. Set it aside on the first of the month, before anything else, the way kakeibo asks. Then December’s shortfall is already covered, and January starts from the usual place.
Keep the columns quiet
The third question, how much am I spending, is the easiest in November because the month is ordinary. Needs, wants, culture, unexpected, written as they happen. The discipline worth adding is one line at the bottom of the page for December purchases made in November: the gift bought early, the order placed ahead. Write them in the column they belong to, and also on that line, so December’s true cost is visible when the month arrives.
The culture column deserves a word. It is the one most households cut first when money feels tight, and November is when it tends to vanish, in anticipation of December. Kakeibo keeps it for a reason: the book, the concert, the day out are what make the month feel lived rather than endured, and they cost far less than the things bought in December to make up for a thin autumn.
The fourth question, asked early
How can I improve? Normally this is asked at the end of the month. In November, ask it halfway through, around the fifteenth. By then the pattern of the month is clear, and there are two weeks left to act on it, which is also the last fortnight before December’s spending begins in earnest.
Write one change. Not a list. One thing to do differently in the second half of November, so the month ends where it was planned to end.
Also on Etsy: the same planners and singles, in the Ikigai Daily Studio shop.
What a good November looks like
At the end of the month the page shows the usual four columns, a savings figure larger than usual already set aside, and a short line of December purchases made calmly and early. The December plan, written on its own page in late November, starts from a known income and a known reserve rather than a hope.
That is most of what separates households that reach January steadily from those that spend February recovering. The difference is not made in December. It is made in the quiet month before it, by a few lines written while there was still time for them to matter.
A free month sheet. The Kakeibo Month Sheet puts the four questions and the four columns on one page, for one month. You get it by email, free. → Get the free sheet
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This article is part of a series exploring Japanese philosophy and intentional living: