I tracked every single purchase I made for 12 months. Here's what I actually learned (not what I expected to learn).

I expected to find a lot of small daily purchases adding up to a significant number. What I found instead: my five largest spending categories were housing (38%), food at home (11%), transportation (9%), dining out (8%), and travel (7%). The sum of all my 'small' purchases — coffee, apps, impulse buys — was 4% of spending.

The practical implication: optimizing the four biggest categories produces 10x the financial impact of cutting small expenses. My housing cost was the single biggest lever. The coffee was not the problem.

This doesn't mean small expenses don't matter. They add up to something real and the habits they reflect matter. But if you're trying to accelerate your financial progress, focus first on the categories that actually move the number.