Why transfers make your spending look bigger than it is
Paying your credit card from chequing can count the same money twice. How to spot card payments and transfers in your bank lines, and why leaving them out gives you a true spending number.
Updated October 31, 2026
The same money, counted twice
When you buy groceries on a credit card and then pay the card from chequing, two lines appear: the grocery purchase on the card, and the payment leaving chequing. Count both and your spending looks twice as big as it was.
What these lines look like
Banks write them in shorthand. On the card you may see “PAYMENT - THANK YOU” or “PAIEMENT - MERCI”. In chequing you may see “BILL PAYMENT” with the card’s name, “TFR-TO”, “INTERNET TRANSFER”, or “E-TRANSFER”.
Moving money between your own accounts, to savings or to an investing account, isn’t spending either. It’s still your money.
e-Transfers can go either way
Most e-Transfers move money between people or between your own accounts, but some pay for something: rent to a landlord, a share of a bill, a purchase from a neighbour. Those are spending, and only you know which is which.
A quick check
Add up last month’s spending, then take out every card payment and transfer between your own accounts. If the number drops a lot, your old total was counting the same money twice.
In habitt
habitt leaves card payments and transfers between your accounts out of spending, and we test that against a labelled set of real-shaped Canadian bank lines. If habitt gets one wrong, change it once and habitt remembers.
General information to help you think it through, not financial or tax advice.