The Daily Finance Check-In
Two minutes a day, like brushing your teeth.
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- 85%
Sokunbi runs a tiered review cadence keyed to each account's time horizon. Checking accounts get a daily two-to-three-minute look via the banking app: reviewing yesterday's transactions to see how you were spending and adjust accordingly, spot where to cut back, and — the part most people miss — verify the transactions are correct, because cable bills, phone bills, and subscription plans generate a lot of errors, double charges, and silent plan changes. Savings get checked around transfer dates. Investment accounts get every couple of weeks, at minimum monthly. Long-term investments deliberately get the least attention, because checking the stock market every single day isn't conducive — you'll drive yourself crazy with short-term behavior. Her framing for the daily habit is deliberately mundane: it's like brushing your teeth.
Origin
Asked how often people should check their finances, Sokunbi described her own practice — daily on checking, fortnightly-to-monthly on investments — and the reasoning behind the split.
Core principles
- 01Check frequency should match the account's time horizon, not your anxiety.
- 02Day-to-day transactions get daily attention; long-term investments do not.
- 03Checking the stock market daily drives short-term behavior and drives you crazy.
- 04Daily review catches billing errors — double charges, plan changes, overpayments — early.
- 05It takes two to three minutes and becomes second nature.
How to run it
- 1
Daily: checking account, 2-3 minutes
Log into your bank account app and check your transactions, especially the checking account. Sokunbi does this every day; by the time she logs in and reviews, it takes two to three minutes.
Pro tip 'It becomes second nature. It's kind of like brushing your teeth.'
- 2
Read the spending, adjust
Review yesterday's transactions to see how you were spending and adjust accordingly, and identify where you can cut back. The daily cadence means the correction lands while it still matters.
- 3
Verify the transactions are correct
Confirm each transaction — especially around bill payment. Sokunbi flags a lot of mistakes with cable bills, phone bills, and subscription plans: make sure you're not being double charged, not overpaying, and that your plan did not silently change.
Pro tip This step alone often pays for the habit.
- 4
Check savings around transfers
Every time you have a transaction going on in the account — say a transfer to savings every two weeks — check in on it to confirm it fired as intended.
Pro tip Pairs with date-based automation: this is also your day-before adjustment window.
- 5
Investments: fortnightly to monthly
Check investment accounts less frequently — maybe every couple of weeks depending on the account, but at least once a month, just to see what's happening there.
- 6
Leave the long-term alone
Be deliberately less on top of long-term investments, because they're long-term. Checking the stock market every single day isn't conducive — you'll drive yourself crazy with short-term behavior.
Watch out Daily investment-checking is the failure mode this tier exists to prevent — it manufactures the impulse to act on noise.
In the wild
Sokunbi's description of the daily routine: open the app, 'Okay, great, it's fine. Oh, not great, okay. Going to fix this,' and then you keep your day. Two minutes, no ceremony.
→ Financial awareness becomes an automatic daily background process instead of a dreaded monthly reckoning.
Sokunbi's specific yield from daily checking: a lot of mistakes happen with cable bills, phone bills, and subscription plans. The daily transaction review is what surfaces a double charge, an overpayment, or a plan that changed without your agreement.
→ Errors get caught within a day rather than compounding across billing cycles unnoticed.
Common mistakes
Checking long-term investments daily
Sokunbi is explicit that it's not conducive — you'll drive yourself crazy with short-term behavior. The account's horizon should set the check frequency; daily attention on a 20-year position manufactures reasons to act on noise.
Never verifying bill transactions
Most people treat the daily check as purely a spending-awareness exercise and skip verification. Cable, phone, and subscription billing errors are common, and an unverified double charge or silent plan change just runs.
Making the check-in a big event
If reviewing your finances is a monthly sit-down, it's aversive and gets skipped. At two minutes on a phone app, there's no day it can't survive.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone who wants spending awareness without turning money-watching into anxiety.
Not ideal for
Active traders whose positions genuinely require intraday attention.
From the transcript
“I check my finances every day... I check every day. It takes 2 to 3 minutes by the time I log in and just check…”
“It's also not conducive to be checking the stock market every single day cuz you'll drive yourself crazy with short-term behavior.”
“I recommend checking every day, 2 minutes. It becomes second nature. It's kind of like brushing your teeth.”
From the episode
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