How much did you spend in 2010?

[Westernskies]

But no rice or beans today...

there's always Red Beans and Rice at Dunbars tomorrow...

 

[W2R]

there's always Red Beans and Rice at Dunbars tomorrow...

Red beans and rice are for Mondays... I just had half a grilled chicken sandwich on French bread today instead, to lose weight. The way they make red beans and rice down here, it's pretty fattening.

 

[Major Tom]

Red beans and rice are for Mondays...

Mmmm.........red beans and rice *rubs tummy*

 

[Bestwifeever]

People are eating three meals a day? Spendthrifts!

 

[bbbamI]

People are eating three meals a day? Spendthrifts!

I had steak for supper tonight. Yep...Izahuzzy...

 

[W2R]

I had steak for supper tonight. Yep...Izahuzzy...

Whew, you're UPTOWN tonight!

 

[obgyn65]

This is one of the reasons why I enjoy reading all the posts. It is interesting to see how different our spending patterns are as a group.

I'm with you, there are folks here that spent less on food last year than I spent last month. That includes going out to eat as well as shopping.

 

[Danmar]

This is one of the reasons why I enjoy reading all the posts. It is interesting to see how different our spending patterns are as a group.

I suspect there are some posters who don't want to disclose their spending levels because they are higher (much?) and wouldn't be consistent with the dominant culture of this site.

 

[FinanceDude]

Waiting for a post from MMND.............

 

[cho oyu]

A couple of these posts are unrealistically low unless people are sitting around in the dark eating rice and beans three meals a day (granted, that's possible). I suspect people have put what they think they are spending without actually adding up receipts; if they actually tracked every expense on a credit card in Quicken they would see that their expenses are higher than their guesstimate.

I think this thread is an excellent eye-opener into how people's lifestyles and situations vary. I don't see that any of the numbers are unreasonable on either the low or high end as long as they are effective relative to income and/or SWR.

Whether someone owns a residence, has spouse and children, and pays for healthcare out of pocket will certainly play a large role in total expenses and are not necessarily detailed. Also, there's a big difference between the person who may have payments on a 4000sqft house near a big city and Mercedes versus a 1000sqft house in a rural area with a 10 year old pickup.

My personal expenses were higher than some and lower than others; around $27k for the year (not including taxes). I live in one of the most expensive parts of the country and do not own a residence, have very expensive hobbies, and partake in a large amount of domestic and international travel.

I also track every single expense down to the penny (actually, I round up every purchase to the nearest dollar, so my numbers are slightly high). Will I ever get down to the $12k that one poster manages? Most likely not in this location or with my present lifestyle, but I used to live on something close to that amount for many years in less expensive locales (inflation adjusted).

I think this is an opportunity to ask questions and reevaluate what expenses are truly necessary to lead a contented life; I'd suggest that by far the majority of people here are quite accurate in describing their lifestyle and costs.

 

[Aiming_4_55]

I think this thread is an excellent eye-opener into how people's lifestyles and situations vary. I don't see that any of the numbers are unreasonable on either the low or high end as long as they are effective relative to income and/or SWR. snip

Totally agree, my spend in 2010 was fairly high for me at about 55-60k, young family of 4 without a mortgage, but we enjoyed 7 weeks of vacation away from home. Life is what you make of it, you live with your choice, good and bad. I'm happy and can save more, but I want a balance to meet my needs.

I'm new to the forum and find the various spend to be interesting but understand a variety of factors play a role. While my target ER is 55, I can probably shave 5 years off and ER at 50 if I altered some of my choices.

41 now, but going to work at 50 will be a different mindset as I hope, I'll have a choice. Make the best for you and your family.

 

[haha]

I had used a custom (orphan) D-E general ledger from years ago for many years, then it was no longer usable on modern versions of Windows so I switched to MS Money for another 10 years or so. Last year my files got corrupted and I couldn't do anything about it, and since MS had cut Money I did nothing.

I didn't like that at all, but my finances are arranged in such a way that while I may miss categories, and I may be shifted a month on some bills, everything goes through one account. So my brokerage statements and history tell a complete tale, that was easy to summarize in Excel. I do have 2 other check writing/ debit card accounts that I use for writing checks where I don't want the recipient to have my mother account data. But I keep a monthly balanced and reconciled Excel check ledger for both these. All my bills including credit card bills are either paid through a check on the mother account, or much more likely through its billpay feature.

All this catch-up took only about 4-5 hours.

This year I am keeping a general journal in Excel, and I hope to learn enough Excel to make a simple general ledger from this, using pivot tables and such. It is simple- I always have a small pack with me, and in it is a little pouch into which I stuff all receipts. I also have 3x5 cards card cut vertically into thirds, and every cash transaction gets noted on one of these, which I keep in a credit card pocket of my wallet. Next morning before I go out I record all receipts and the cash transactions, transfer the receipts into another pouch to keep for a while.

Ha

 

[soupcxan]

We spent approximately 16500, here are the details

1133 Car
2667 Grocery
333 Phone
267 Elec
4200 Rent
3733 School
178 Medical
222 Clothes
3044 TV+Furniture
267 Misc
222 Books+dress
============
16267 TOTAL

There are invisible expenses, like car, appliance, etc. depreciation, company paid health insurance, internet. I was aiming for 24000 but somehow was not able to reach that.

This is the budget that I just don't get, I think we are missing part of the story here.

I would like to know how two people can live comfortably on $222/month in groceries, I believe it is possible but it must require massive coupon searching in addition to eating a lot of repetive dishes cooked in bulk. Plus if you include other non-food things that I typically buy at the grocery store (shampoo, soap, toothpaste, paper products, etc.) I think it would be even more of a hardship.

Also, there is no item in this budget for eating out, did they not eat at a single restaurant the entire year?

What kind of living space and how many sq ft does $350/month in rent get you?

$23/month in electricity? They must never run the A/C or the heat? No bills for other utilities like water, gas, etc?

$111/person per year in clothing? Don't see how this is possible unless you exclusively shop at thrift stores (even so, that is still not much of a wardrobe, or to allow for normal replacement of socks and underwear).

 

[haha]

This is the budget that I just don't get, I think we are missing part of the story here.

Naughty, naughty Soupy!

Ha

 

[landover]

I should be clear, this is for living in a developing country, eating out is cheap here still we mostly eat at home. Weather is good enough all year, no need for AC/Heating. Gas(Propane) only for cooking, subsidized. People here believe that property price will go up and up so rent is cheaper compared to property price, I think my apartment is around 1250 sq feet. Gas-petrol is expensive but distances are less and car insurance is $200/year.

I also lived in Dallas, I think I was spending around 40k there.

This is the budget that I just don't get, I think we are missing part of the story here.

I would like to know how two people can live comfortably on $222/month in groceries, I believe it is possible but it must require massive coupon searching in addition to eating a lot of repetive dishes cooked in bulk. Plus if you include other non-food things that I typically buy at the grocery store (shampoo, soap, toothpaste, paper products, etc.) I think it would be even more of a hardship.

Also, there is no item in this budget for eating out, did they not eat at a single restaurant the entire year?

What kind of living space and how many sq ft does $350/month in rent get you?

$23/month in electricity? They must never run the A/C or the heat? No bills for other utilities like water, gas, etc?

$111/person per year in clothing? Don't see how this is possible unless you exclusively shop at thrift stores (even so, that is still not much of a wardrobe, or to allow for normal replacement of socks and underwear).

 

[W2R]

I should be clear, this is for living in a developing country, eating out is cheap here still we mostly eat at home. Weather is good enough all year, no need for AC/Heating. Gas(Propane) only for cooking, subsidized. People here believe that property price will go up and up so rent is cheaper compared to property price, I think my apartment is around 1250 sq feet. Gas-petrol is expensive but distances are less and car insurance is $200/year.

I also lived in Dallas, I think I was spending around 40k there.

That explains it nicely. Thanks!

 

[sailor]

This is the budget that I just don't get, I think we are missing part of the story here.
I would like to know how two people can live comfortably on $222/month in groceries, I believe it is possible but it must require massive coupon searching in addition to eating a lot of repetive dishes cooked in bulk.

He, he - you should look at some frugal people and not ER board, where everybody is filthy rich
I think Nomad Chick from simplelivings forums was able for feed her family of four (granted - two small kids) relatively healthy for roughly $100 per month.

Also, there is no item in this budget for eating out, did they not eat at a single restaurant the entire year?

There are cultures where going to the restaurants is considered extravagant.
I tried to remember how many times I was at the restaurant growing up and I came with only one time before I turned 18.

What kind of living space and how many sq ft does $350/month in rent get you?

Craigslist shows up to 3 bedrooms in greater Atlanta area: atlanta apts/housing for rent classifieds - craigslist

$23/month in electricity? They must never run the A/C or the heat? No bills for other utilities like water, gas, etc?

When I lived in single bedroom apartment in Atlanta suburbs I paid roughly $30 total for both gas and electric, the rest of the utilities were included in the rent ($400 per month at the time). I never run A/C, I did run heat in the winter.

$111/person per year in clothing? Don't see how this is possible unless you exclusively shop at thrift stores (even so, that is still not much of a wardrobe, or to allow for normal replacement of socks and underwear).

That's actually a pretty generous amount. Last year for myself I think I spent $69 for Keens sandals (I hope they last at least 7 years as the last pair did) and Santa brought me few pairs of socks (~$10 maybe). I'm curious how often you replace socks and underwear? Also how expensive do they need to be? Target has 6 packs of socks for 9.99 and 6 pack of underwear for 12.99

 

[soupcxan]

I should be clear, this is for living in a developing country

Ok, that's the missing part of the story. Thanks.

 

[Danmar]

Ha- I am impressed with your dedication to catching all your cash expenses. We lump all our cash expenses into just one category called not surprisingly "cash" Includes groceries, liquor, taxies, cleaning ladies, etc. Very consistant year over year at about 5% of total spend. I must say I am truly amazed at how little some of you live on. Well done but cetainly not our style.

 

[aaronc879]

I track every single expense down to the penny (actually, I round up every purchase to the nearest dollar, so my numbers are slightly high). .

Same here. Everything I spend is counted. A couple times a year the food I bring to work just isn't enough. The 80 cent candy bar I get from the machine is $1 added to my spending. Everything is included in the $11,974 I spent in 2010.

I'm single, no kids, paid off condo(no debt), low cost area. I'm also young, 31. I've only spent about $100 out of pocket for healthcare in my entire adult life, nothing in 2010.

 

[beowulf]

First a note to Khan - unless you are planning on taking equal monthly payments for a year at a time from your TSP (you can change the amount annually), the best thing to do is just roll it to an IRA. You can only take one lump sum distribution and with the next one must empty the account. Not a lot of flexibility. When the time comes that we need those dollars, I'll just roll mine to an IRA.

On the expenses - we sort of track expenses, but not to the dollar. We don't really budget, but we should. The only way I can judge gross expenses is to figure what we earned (wife is retired), subtract what went to the 401K and other savings, and the remainder is what we spent on everything, to include roughly $70K in taxes. It has to be close, as we didn't withdraw anything from savings or retirement accounts, so unless it came from income, it didn't get spent. Total for 2010 was about $170K in expenses (includes 401K) other than taxes (federal, state, SS and RE). It was higher than it would normally be as we had to put a fair amount into our houe for renovations and new windows. We also spent 4 months in AZ during last Winter (double housing expense) and took a few other trips to include one out of the country.

Retirement will certainly be a shock to our system, but our plan remains to stay below 4% SWR and mostly live off CSRS, a military pension and whatever minimal amount of SS we get. Rough calculations show that taxes will drop by a large amount, won't be putting anything into 401K and work related expenses will drop. I won't know until it happens, but I don't think our actual, after tax disposal income will be much different from what it is now.

I admire all those who can live on less that $20 or $30K a year - we did it also, with 2 kids to boot, but that was back in the early 1970s . I know we could not get by on anywhere near that today.

 

[soupcxan]

Everything is included in the $11,974 I spent in 2010.

I would be interested to see how this breaks down, even if your condo is paid off I do not believe it is possible to live on this amount in the US unless your standard of living is below the poverty line.

 

[skyvue]

Divorced, 43 with one child. Hard for me to know details because I used cash for just about anything I can, but:

Mortgage & Property Taxes: $19,564
Autos: $7,763
Child Support/Education Tuition: $14,087
Vehicle Gasoline & Maintenance: $1,580
Cable/Onstar/Cell: $1,922
Credit Card/Misc: $3,703
Cash (all non-fixed expenses): $17,899
Local Income Tax: $2,087
Auto/Condo Insurance: $1,310
Water/Sewer: $90
Natural Gas: $296
Electricity: $893
-----------------------
Total Spending (excluding federal and state income tax):
$72,998.

This is the most I have spent in any one year. Daughter starting private high school really spiked it up.

I bought I condo 3 years ago and my expense have averaged ~ $68K in those years. The prior 3 years as a renter they were ~$48K! Yes, I regret buying!

 

[aaronc879]

I would be interested to see how this breaks down, even if your condo is paid off I do not believe it is possible to live on this amount in the US unless your standard of living is below the poverty line.

Millions of people live on less than me in the US.

 

[skyvue]

Millions of people live on less than me in the US.

That is a bit shocking and sort of brings me back to reality. My daughter's high school tuition, books and activites are that much per year!