2017 Spending Summary and Analysis

[sakowitzm]

2017 was a crazy expensive year for us - many items 2X or 3X normal - way over the top vacations, and more. We are 59 yo retired couple with two recent college grads living nearby, one with boyfriend. So we still have groceries and restaurants and entertainment often for four or five people, not just two. Despite what you see, we are not extravagant. We eat at home most days, I cook dinners - chicken, ground beef, etc. not high-end things. OTOH, we don't deny ourselves much; my wife has cancer and so to the extent she is able, we like to do nice things.

(sorry about the formatting)

HOME EXPENSES
Real Estate Tax 8,700
Electric 2,400
Gas 800
Water 1,200
Cell Phones 2,100
Cable - TV, Internet, Phone 2,800
HOA 500
Furnishings/Appliances 900
Lawn 2,700
Home Supplies, Repair, Maintenance 6,400
Other 600

DAILY LIVING
ATM 8,000
Groceries 11,400
Costco-Target-WalMart 3,100
Personal Supplies / CVS 1,000
Clothing 6,300
Restaurants 7,000
Dry Cleaning 200
Salon/Barber 800
Massage/Pedicure 200
Other 11,400

TRANSPORTATION
Fuel 1,400
Repairs/Maintenance 4,600
Registration/License 200
Personal Property Tax 300
Other (including local Uber and EZPass) 1,100

HEALTH
Travel 700
Doctor - not cancer 2,700
Doctor - cancer 4,300
Prescriptions 1,100
Dentist 700
Labwork 300
Exercise, Yoga, PT 900
Other 600

INSURANCE
Auto 1,300
Health 21,000
Homeowner's 1,800
Umbrella 600
Life 1,100
LTC 3,500

RELIGION/CHARITY/GIFTS
Dues 3,300
Charitable Donations 3,200
Other 200

ENTERTAINMENT
Netflix 100
Movies 800
Concerts 5,300
Theater 4,700
Books 1,300
iTunes 200
Other 500

PETS
Pets 2,500
Other 600

SUBSCRIPTIONS
Newspaper 1,100
Magazines 100

VACATION
Playa del Carmen 9,900
Cruise Spring Break 10,400
Pittsburgh 400
Coeur d'Alene 8,800
Other 6,700

MISCELLANEOUS
Postage 100

Total: 186,900


Additional, not included (one time expenses)
Funeral Prepaid: $10.800
Perpetual Care: $11,700
Cemetary Plots: $7,000
New car graduation gift: $27,500
Apple Mac laptop graduation gift: $2,300
Earrings: $8,300
MIL hearing aid: $3,550

 

[grasshopper]

No taxes?

Household includes property tax, no federal or state income tax. Property tax would have been the under 1% line but I included it with household.

 

[Meadbh]

2017 was a crazy expensive year for us - many items 2X or 3X normal - way over the top vacations, and more. We are 59 yo retired couple with two recent college grads living nearby, one with boyfriend. So we still have groceries and restaurants and entertainment often for four or five people, not just two. Despite what you see, we are not extravagant. We eat at home most days, I cook dinners - chicken, ground beef, etc. not high-end things. OTOH, we don't deny ourselves much; my wife has cancer and so to the extent she is able, we like to do nice things.

(sorry about the formatting)

HOME EXPENSES
Real Estate Tax 8,700
Electric 2,400
Gas 800
Water 1,200
Cell Phones 2,100
Cable - TV, Internet, Phone 2,800
HOA 500
Furnishings/Appliances 900
Lawn 2,700
Home Supplies, Repair, Maintenance 6,400
Other 600

DAILY LIVING
ATM 8,000
Groceries 11,400
Costco-Target-WalMart 3,100
Personal Supplies / CVS 1,000
Clothing 6,300
Restaurants 7,000
Dry Cleaning 200
Salon/Barber 800
Massage/Pedicure 200
Other 11,400

TRANSPORTATION
Fuel 1,400
Repairs/Maintenance 4,600
Registration/License 200
Personal Property Tax 300
Other (including local Uber and EZPass) 1,100

HEALTH
Travel 700
Doctor - not cancer 2,700
Doctor - cancer 4,300
Prescriptions 1,100
Dentist 700
Labwork 300
Exercise, Yoga, PT 900
Other 600

INSURANCE
Auto 1,300
Health 21,000
Homeowner's 1,800
Umbrella 600
Life 1,100
LTC 3,500

RELIGION/CHARITY/GIFTS
Dues 3,300
Charitable Donations 3,200
Other 200

ENTERTAINMENT
Netflix 100
Movies 800
Concerts 5,300
Theater 4,700
Books 1,300
iTunes 200
Other 500

PETS
Pets 2,500
Other 600

SUBSCRIPTIONS
Newspaper 1,100
Magazines 100

VACATION
Playa del Carmen 9,900
Cruise Spring Break 10,400
Pittsburgh 400
Coeur d'Alene 8,800
Other 6,700

MISCELLANEOUS
Postage 100

Total: 186,900


Additional, not included (one time expenses)
Funeral Prepaid: $10.800
Perpetual Care: $11,700
Cemetary Plots: $7,000
New car graduation gift: $27,500
Apple Mac laptop graduation gift: $2,300
Earrings: $8,300
MIL hearing aid: $3,550

Well, you could have fooled me. Whenever I see large “Other” categories, I wonder where that money went. Another red flag is “ATM”. You took $8000 out of the ATM and you have no accounting for where it went.

 

[Ronstar]

... You took $8000 out of the ATM and you have no accounting for where it went.

I have the same problem, but only to the $6k level. For me, it's time consuming to account for cash out. In the past, I've split the expenditures evenly between misc and restaurants (I use cash for fast food), making about 2 entries each into quicken per month. Just a rough guess of where the $ goes.

I'm going to try to account for the cash this year as well as minimize "misc". I think I'll keep daily notes of cash expenditures in 2018 and see where that goes.

 

[Meadbh]

In 2017, I withdrew exactly $200 from the ATM, to pay for small weekly fees of my Golf group. Everything else is documented as credit card payments or electronic withdrawals. I have no “other” category.

I recently spent an entire week in Europe without using any cash at all.

 

[ivinsfan]

Well, you could have fooled me. Whenever I see large “Other” categories, I wonder where that money went. Another red flag is “ATM”. You took $8000 out of the ATM and you have no accounting for where it went.

OTOH if you want a cheap vacation go to Pittsburgh, it's a real bargain..

 

[sakowitzm]

Yeah, I guess extravagance is in the eyes of the beholder. I might have said that we don't belong to a country club, we don't drive BMWs, we don't throw fancy parties, etc.

I DO know where most of the "Other"s go.... it's just miscellaneous. The biggest ATM expense is the weekly cleaning crew at $100/week. So that's $5,000+. The big $11,000 in Daily Living is a catch-all for lots of mostly small things; very few items there are over $100.

 

[Meadbh]

Yeah, I guess extravagance is in the eyes of the beholder. I might have said that we don't belong to a country club, we don't drive BMWs, we don't throw fancy parties, etc.

I DO know where most of the "Other"s go.... it's just miscellaneous. The biggest ATM expense is the weekly cleaning crew at $100/week. So that's $5,000+. The big $11,000 in Daily Living is a catch-all for lots of mostly small things; very few items there are over $100.

Those small things add up. If you don’t know what they are, how do you know whether you could eliminate them if you had to?

 

[ivinsfan]

Yeah, I guess extravagance is in the eyes of the beholder. I might have said that we don't belong to a country club, we don't drive BMWs, we don't throw fancy parties, etc.

I DO know where most of the "Other"s go.... it's just miscellaneous. The biggest ATM expense is the weekly cleaning crew at $100/week. So that's $5,000+. The big $11,000 in Daily Living is a catch-all for lots of mostly small things; very few items there are over $100.

You are quite inconsistent, the cleaning fees would be one of your biggest home expenses, you entered lawn mowing but not cleaning...LOL 11K in "small things" is a lot of small things..over 200 hundred bucks a week, aren't you at all curious?....

 

[Danmar]

I use a category called “cash”. It includes groceries, wine beer and ,liquor, anything paid by cash(eg ATM withdrawals). Very consistent year to year and under 5% of total spend. In my opinion there is diminishing marginal utility in tracking small items or items paid by cash. Also, no real need or interest in trying to reduce these type of expenses. Well, I guess it would be healthier to reduce alcohol consumption.

 

[kcowan]

We tracked expense spending for the first three years of retirement, even breaking out items from broad credit card categories. Once we got a handle on things and stopped unnecessary spending, we have stopped detailed summaries.

We increased our transfers to heirs last year by 53%. Insurance has gone up. Food has gone up. Alcohol has gone up. Telecom has decreased.

 

[NW-Bound]

Because we don't use cash, just downloading the transactions into Quicken gets me all the tracking I need although some misclassifications cause some head scratching later when I get curious.

PS. I hit "download" button every day. The idea is to catch any mischarge or identity theft before it's too late.

PPS. We don't budget and our spending has been quite lumpy. Without some records to refer to later, I would not remember what I spent money on.

 

[ivinsfan]

I use a category called “cash”. It includes groceries, wine beer and ,liquor, anything paid by cash(eg ATM withdrawals). Very consistent year to year and under 5% of total spend. In my opinion there is diminishing marginal utility in tracking small items or items paid by cash. Also, no real need or interest in trying to reduce these type of expenses. Well, I guess it would be healthier to reduce alcohol consumption.

The only reason I mentioned it was that the OP said he had a crazy expensive year and had close to 30K in the "other" category...if you don't know what was in the other, you have no idea if it's a normal expense or simply an outlier that won't repeat next year. I agree with you.. you know exactly what's in your cash category..not an issue

 

[orangehairfella]

I don't track by category, though I do account for large optional expenditures that we could cut in a downturn if needed. I also don't currently account for health insurance or income taxes since these will be significantly different in ER.

Spending
Total of $37,762. We expected to spend about $36k (aka $3k/mo) this year, so we ended up pretty close. Includes 2 optional home improvement projects totaling $3000 as well as $2500/each of "fun money" for my partner and I. There's a rather budget European vacation in there somewhere. That number also includes the $4000 we set aside for a new car purchase in the future. No kids, we both work. If we take out the optional stuff we end up at $25,762 as our "bare minimum" number. There's probably other stuff that could be cut out if needed.

Saving
Total of $130,814. Which means our forecast of $130k was pretty darn close. That number includes 401k matching, but not capital gains or dividend reinvestment deposits. We only track as savings that which is a direct result of our j*bs.

 

[slowsaver]

Our expenses

Even though the categories seem really different this year, the total was within 1% of last year ...

Spending	2017	2016	Increase
Total	$64,493.62	$65,134.33	-1%
CASH	$838.00	$1,080.00	-22%
Auto - Fuel	$710.00	$599.26	18%
Auto - Maint	$645.59	$497.67	30%
Groceries	$3,232.16	$4,025.06	-20%
Alcohol	$934.89	$0.00	New
Internet	$636.83	$552.08	15%
Cell Phone	$105.90	$109.26	-3%
Utilities	$2,246.31	$2,113.36	6%
Condo (HOA, PropTax, Insur)	$4,659.59	$4,341.15	7%
Gifts	$713.96	$819.96	-13%
Home & Garden	$7,481.92	$1,679.44	346%
Home Insur	$2,065.25	$685.15	201%
Property Tax (primary home)	$8,133.36	$8,110.34	0%
Auto Insurance	$588.50	$743.50	-21%
Health, Dental, Gym Fees	$580.90	$935.45	-38%
Misc - Other	$290.53	$2,730.07	-89%
Clothing	$946.45	$595.92	59%
Computer	$1,085.23	$220.74	392%
Bike, Run, Sports	$25.99	$287.63	-91%
Dance	$1,135.13	$1,003.74	13%
Dining	$11,509.44	$9,903.90	16%
Entertain & Education	$1,411.73	$2,333.94	-40%
Personal Care	$449.84	$552.01	-19%
Donations	$2,431.00	$2,036.94	19%
Vacation Packages	$1,379.00	$7,392.57	-81%
Lodging	$3,759.63	$1,158.72	224%
Air Travel	$2,797.16	$3,587.47	-22%
Public Transport, Uber, Tolls	$584.54	$682.79	-14%
Husband's Misc	$3,114.79	$6,356.21	-51%

• Grocery: cost is down because alcohol is categorized separately this year.
  
• Home & Garden: is up due to new attic ducts & insulation; also removed a tree.
  
• Insurance: Switched company and got an umbrella policy this year.

 

[bobandsherry]

Well, you could have fooled me. Whenever I see large “Other” categories, I wonder where that money went. Another red flag is “ATM”. You took $8000 out of the ATM and you have no accounting for where it went.

When you have $186K spend, what's $8K? I looked through the list too, when I see $5K on "concerts", well, someones fooling or trolling someone.

 

[robnplunder]

What and how others spent their money can be interesting but not enough to ask questions about it. That's me. I'd rather focus on how I spent, and will spend in the coming year.

 

[RobbieB]

When you have $186K spend, what's $8K? I looked through the list too, when I see $5K on "concerts", well, someones fooling or trolling someone.

The Rolling Stones in Europe last year for 4 perhaps?

Really, not that hard to believe for me.

 

[Scuba]

Why yes, yes it does. Traditionally, forum members want their way of doing anything to be the one correct way and all other methodologies to be considered "wrong."

[emoji23]

 

[Scuba]

This is very similar to our situation Michael. I see no reason for detailed tracking of spending, rather just a few major buckets such as income tax, property tax, medical costs and major one-time expenditures (remodeling projects, new car, major travel, etc.) and total spending. After that, ehhhh, I don't care. Our "other spending" bucket is relatively small and we tend to be cost conscious spenders.

The important thing to track, IMHO, is our time and how satisfied we are with how we're spending it. Right now we're having discussions concerning life style, activities and our satisfaction or frustration with the outcomes of various plans.

Early in retirement (we've been fully FIRE'd 12+ years), we tracked spending in significant detail. Despite the effort (and we didn't like making that effort, it was a drag) we never uncovered any data that drove us to make changes that increased our satisfaction with how we were spending our time in a meaningful way.

I’m interested in your time tracking and what you learned from it. I’m still trying to figure out the right balance between activities and relaxation. Care to share more?

 

[RobbieB]

If you're getting tired from your activities, try to relax more -

 

[Scuba]

The Rolling Stones in Europe last year for 4 perhaps?



Really, not that hard to believe for me.

+1

 

[Scuba]

If you're getting tired from your activities, try to relax more -

Good suggestion!

 

[rayinpenn]

I won’t bore you with day to day but what sticks in my mind...
$7,000 house stucco repair
$700 garage door spring mechanism
$300 2 Jøtul stove maintenance and resulting explosion

Oh and about 34,000 tuition for freshman son and grad school daughter. Geese two years of that and you can buy a Mercedes E400 Cabriolet.

 

[SheitlQueen]

Just finished my 2017 spending review....happy that I stayed on budget.

Home (property taxes, insurance and repairs/maintenance): $4,826
Auto (insurance, gas, maintenance): $3,379
Health (insurance, meds, gym, contact lenses): $5,318
Utilities (internet, DirectTV, electric, oil, garbage, phone, etc): $5,328
Eating out (I need to cut back on this in 2018!): $2,284
Groceries: $1,617
Hobbies/Travel/Entertainment: $7,717
Misc(anything not in the above categories): $6,826

Grand total: $37,305 which was less than my income.

Normally I don't pay taxes, but this year I will have to because of an inheritance involving capital gains, and my Social Security will be taxed, and I'll have to pay
back my ACA subsidy. Don't know the total amount yet but am hoping it will stay
below $10,000 which will put me over my actual budget this year, but next year
I'll be back on track with zero taxes.