Maybe enter purchases in a linked spreadsheet from your phone to your desktop to track purchases? Might just be better off sucking up purchase information from your bank’s API to your spreadsheet. Smaller bank APIs tend to suck though.
Since I review my finances weekly, there's really no need for notifications. Habit is enough. My bank already sends me notifications for possible fraud (almost always incorrectly, but I suppose I'd rather it err in that direction than the other).
Simple works for me, but there are certainly some ways to add complexity to it if that's helpful to you.
I use telegram or ntfy to notify myself.
Most of the major telcomms have an email to text setup. Verizon is {phone_number}@vtext.com, AT&T is {phone_number}@txt.att.net
I'd like something like Privacy that creates temporary credit card numbers, but is also anonymous from the provider side. Sort of like buying a new visa gift card to use every month.
But I also like getting points to use while traveling
I've settled on Capitol One. They call them Virtual Cards. I have lots of temporary cards, mostly I use them for specific vendors (utilities, different SaSS subscriptions) so if some low security site gets hacked it won't work anywhere except with that vendor.
I'm not sure if that feature is only for specific cards they offer.
Why?
One, I pay cash as much as I possibly can (fuck surveillance finance), so using something that brings in my transactions isn't that much of a time savings. I have a minimal number of monthly scheduled transactions, so bringing those in manually just isn't really that painful.
Two, it adds a tiny bit of friction to my spending. This is a good thing (at least for me). If I know I have to write down the amount, and if only briefly think about what I've already spent this month, it slightly dissuades me from conducting the transaction.
Again, this works for me. Sharing in case it works for you.