2017 Spending Summary and Analysis

[Senator]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kgtest Whoa...Denali ? I paid 42k for my 2017 GMC base...that's the 6.6l Turbo Diesel 4x4 with trailering/tow pkg sticker was 54k but I drove to Illinois from MN to buy it. Looks like you have about 103,000 in tax deductions this year, nice work!

2017 Ford F350 Platinum Ultimate, 6.7 PSD, Crew Cab, 4x4. Retrax Pro MX Tonneau cover, Rhino liner.

I do not have kids to write off, but I do have a truck. $113K (not $103K) worth of deductions, spread over several years, but I had to pay upfront.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound Darn! I spoke too soon about that 0.0268 number to be final. Just now realize that I have not included the I-bond interests in my and her accounts for December, which are not posted yet. Assuming the interests to be like that of November, it will be 0.0266.

As you withdrew those funds to cover the current year’s expenses, they should be compared to the portfolio value at the beginning of the year. Not the end.

[bbbamI]

We spent a few thousand more this year than last year. However, the WR rate this year is lower at 1.5% compared to 2.01% for 2016.

[iloveyoga]

I know what we spend, but I don't track to this detail. Thanks for sharing, this is very interesting.

[Danmar]

I really blew the budget in 2017. About 20% overplan. Decided mid year to up the spending and sold some stock to fund it. Travel, property related expenses, clothing, eating out, were all well over plan. I set the 2018 budget at the higher level. Portfolio is up nicely despite the increased spending.

[Tom52]

I track our spending on an Excel spreadsheet. We like to think it is tracked to the exact $, it is extremely close if not exact. I have quite a few categories on my spread sheet but I have lumped some together to reduce the list. This is for 2 people living in small town Iowa. Note that we were traveling approx. 2.5 months out of the year. No pets.

Entertainment $1,267.38
Groceries $3,924.65
hairdresser $353.18
gasoline $1,214.12
cable TV/internet $1,702.81
Cell phone $217.90
gas/electric $2,000.15
water/sewer $551.40
vehicle insurance $1,067
vehicle repairs $2,214.60
property tax $3,024
house insurance $901.79
license pates $153
clothes $1,284.50
Christmas/birthday gifts $1,496.61
medical/dental/prescriptions $2,092.17
travel/vacations $15,911.47
lawn maintenance $1,683.44
house maintenance (includes $8,000 remodeling) $10,633.79
miscellaneous(includes fed/state taxes paid) $2,954.91

total spending for 2017 = $54,648.87 approx. 1,7% of invested assets
total spending for 2016 + $50,715.90 approx. 1.7% of invested assets

I expect that spending in 2018 will be much more as we anticipate purchase of a new vehicle in the $55,000 range. Est 3.3% of invested assets in 2018.

[easysurfer]

I spent about 10% less than I budgeted.

LBYM -- old habits die hard .

[Moemg]

In 2017 I blew the budget big time . I knew I was going to with several big trips planned and a few expensive home repairs but throw a new car into the mix and the budget goes out the window .Plan to rein it in for 2018.

[street]

My spending has stayed the same for each of the 1.5 years of retirement at .5%. I will be spending more in the years to come as I get more comfortable with retirement and spending.

[UtahSkier]

I do extensive planning and tracking with Quicken. Target budget is $130K. Last year we were $10K below budget and this year we were over budget by $4K... Medical expenses got us this year.

So, we are $6K under budget since retirement (2016 start).

My approach to budgeting includes a lot of long term expenses that happen only once over a 7-10 year timeframe. This year we purchased a new washer / dryer set. Also, we started a wine cellar, so this year's expenses include wine purchases for consumption over the next 7 years. The spending for the Groceries:Spirits is clearly over budget and will be for some time.

And yes, the motorhome thing is expensive. The vacation category is for the expenses where we are actually out using the RV.

This spending is for 2 adults and 2 dogs.

The listing below is a quicken report.

	Auto	2,921.77
	Auto:Fuel	1,539.84
	Auto:Insurance	813
	Auto:Registration	383.5
	Auto:Service	185.43
	Bank Charge	35
	Beauty	1,916.34
	Cash	1,758.00
	Clothing	2,580.94
	Dining	6,713.71
	Entertainment	1,317.05
	Entertainment:General	1,041.90
	Entertainment:Hobby	275.15
	Fitness	6,694.14
	Fitness:Biking	1,063.01
	Fitness:General	1,449.40
	Fitness:Gym	402.9
	Fitness:Skiing	3,778.83
	Gifts Given	1,306.99
	Groceries	20,106.26
	Groceries:General	13,373.75
	Groceries:Spirits	6,718.51
	Home Expenses	10,269.59
	Home Expenses:Association Fees	900
	Home Expenses:Home Improvement	5,720.77
	Home Expenses:Misc	3,015.28
	Home Expenses:Repair	633.54
	Insurance	4,722.11
	Insurance:Health Insurance	3,940.11
	Insurance:Home Insurance	338
	Insurance:Umbrella	444
	Medical	16,123.22
	Motorhome	27,990.82
	Motorhome:Improvement	6,469.31
	Motorhome:Insurance	616
	Motorhome:License	1,993.20
	Motorhome:Service	15,852.31
	Motorhome:Storage	3,060.00
	Pets	3,811.87
	Pets:Grooming	610.07
	Pets:Supplies	1,545.95
	Pets:Vet	1,655.85
	Professional Services	50
	Software and Computers	53.38
	Tax	5,330.91
	Utilities	6,529.99
	Utilities:Cable TV	701.83
	Utilities:Garbage & Recycling	180.48
	Utilities:Gas & Electric	2,288.09
	Utilities:Internet	392.65
	Utilities:Telephone	2,133.26
	Utilities:Water	540
	Vacation	13,686.18
	Vacation:Activity	1,399.18
	Vacation:Campground Fee	6,775.72
	Vacation:Fuel	4,051.20
	Vacation:Internet	110
	Vacation:Lodging	1,350.08
	OVERALL TOTAL	133,918.27

[Car-Guy]

I quit tracking my spending by categories a few years ago. These days I just track NW annually. (That's tomorrows task ) As long as our NW stays the same or goes up, I just won't worry about it. When I did track expenses, other than my hobbies, all other categories were so close each year that it really didn't matter. This year I know my hobby cost were up significantly. To be honest, I don't really want to know how much. It's the one category I could easily change and have a biggest impact, but I don't want to.

[jollystomper]

I track our expenses through Quicken. I focus on those that consistently account for 90% of our expenses, to determine the potential retirement impact. For 2017 this is how it shakes out (sorry, I cannot get this to format in columns properly):

Category: 2017 Spending; Pct of Expenses; Change from 2016

Taxes (Fed, ST, SS, Prop): $63,837.45; 36.4%; 17.1%

Charity: $23,559.91; 13.4%; 2.5%

Gifts: $12,088.30; 6.9%; 71.3%

Kids College: $10,125.00; 5.8%; -48.5%

Vacation: $9,587.31; 5.5%; 349.9%

Groceries: $7,684.00; 4.4%; -9.2%

Mortgage payments: $7,440.00; 4.2%; 0.0%

Medical: $7,263.64; 4.1%; -59.7%

Auto (fees/gas/repairs/ins): $5,731.18; 3.3%; 25.5%

Utilities: $4,960.25; 2.8%; 6.9%

Miscellaneous: $4,104.52; 2.3%; 237.7%

Insurance (home/liab/life): $3,136.79; 1.8%; -17.2%

College expenses are DONE . Taxes should go way down in retirement and hopefully will more than offset the rise in Medical premiums. We can control travel, charity and gifts based on our financial standing.

[Fishingmn]

We semi-retired about 2 years ago. Plan for DW was to do consulting 2 days/week for 3 months and then be fully done.

Have a detailed budget but 2 years later DW is still doing 2 days/week and bringing in substantial income so we haven't been too diligent about sticking to the budget. 2018 looks like more of the same. Probably good that she doesn't have to have me bugging her about spending.

[pacergal]

First full year in retirement, our basic budget day to day is on track. We blew our spending with two issues--one planned, one unplanned. But that is what the contingency plan/budget is for, right? Hoping this next year will give me a better idea of our true retirement spend will be going forward.
What we took out, the market put back in, so all is good. We have more today in our taxable and 457 than when we left w**k in 2016.

[skipro33]

3 of us since March when my father moved in. He's 85 w/dementia.

Groceries $10,000
Restaurants $1,400
Gasoline $2500
Car Payment $3,200
Car maint $1,600
Home/Auto insurance $ 5,000
Utilities $5,400 (cable, propane, water, trash, electric, newspaper, cell phone)
Fitness $2,000 (includes gym membership, season ski pass)
Clothes $0
Miscellaneous $3,400
Video Games, apps 0
Medical $3,000
Property taxes $4,000
Pets $1,800
Entertainment $1,300
Gifts $5,600
Travel $3,600
RV payment $2,200

Total $56,000

I want to add that I built an addition on the house; a caretaker apartment/studio for $55,000. My dad's care taker will live there while my dad is alive.

[FIREd]

For 2017:

Living expenses: $33,186 (groceries, health/auto/home/umbrella/dental insurance premiums, utilities, cell phones, property/income taxes, auto registration and fuel, YMCA membership, cats, hair cuts, termite control)

Contributions to our reserve fund: $14,715 (money accrues in the fund to pay for future expenses like medical out-of-pocket expenses, car replacement, and home/auto repairs)

Discretionary expenses: $32,010 (travel, dining, clothes, home improvement, entertainment, etc...)

Total: $79,911

In 2017, we had to pull quite a bit of money from our reserve fund to cover an extensive home renovation, a new car purchase, and some dental work. It was the first time that we had to pull any significant amount of money from the fund in several years.

In 2018, our living expenses will drop by nearly $10k - we moved our primary residence to a lower cost of living location back in April 2017 and our health insurance premiums will be subsidized for the first time. The $10k savings will be redirected towards the reserve fund to cover future health insurance premium increases.

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 As you withdrew those funds to cover the current year’s expenses, they should be compared to the portfolio value at the beginning of the year. Not the end.

I know that's the conventional thinking. But I do not pre-withdraw the money at the beginning of the year because I do not know how much I will spend. I transfer money from investment accounts to the checking account as needed, which is every 1 or 2 months. And so, I look at the present total value reported by Quicken when I make the transfer.

It's the same as people who withdraw a fixed percentage of remaining portfolio value, but I do it monthly instead of yearly. Of course, it is convenient that the ending value of the stash is higher than the starting value.

Next year, if the market tanks, I will use "your" method.

[Philliefan33]

I track our expense in Quicken but I don’t think I’m consistent about what goes in each category from month to month or year to year. I also don’t track income or wage taxes as a Quicken category so it’s not easy to pull together our total tax spend.

What’s important for us is that we lived on DH’s pension + a little PT income + rental income. We didn’t make any withdrawals from our retirement accounts or taxable investment accounts.

Total spending on what I call “living expenses” was $79K for two of us in SE PA. Some categories I’ll share:

Gasoline $1850
Auto insurance $1600
Clothing: $1100
Dining: $500
Groceries $4700 (includes anything bought at Costco)
Hobbies $1900
Household $6300 (stuff I’m too lazy to characterize)
Homeowner’s insurance $2500 (two houses)
Property tax $12,700 (two houses)
Utilities $5500 (phones/electric/gas/cable/internet)
Travel $2700
New (used) SUV $18,000

We don’t plan to buy a vehicle next year but we will have a wedding to pay for.

[mountainsoft]

I have to say, I find this thread refreshing. I figured you were all millionaires, so it's nice to see some down to earth living expenses.

I don't track our expenses in detail, but I did download our checking and credit card data from the bank a couple weeks ago to see what we had spent the last couple of years. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was right around $36,000 for each of the last two years. We're still working, but that's about what I've been estimating for our post retirement. Considering many of those expenses will go away after retirement, I think we'll do OK.

We spent more this year than usual since my mom had a stroke earlier this year. It has meant a lot of driving back and forth and eating out more than we normally would. Of course, we didn't spend as much on vacations and recreation since we've been busy, so it kind of works out about the same.

Thanks for sharing!

[Meadbh]

In 2017 I spent more than I had in 2016, mostly due to tax owing and increased tax instalments. Spending in 2017 was 3.58% of the assets I had when I retired, which was 2.97% of the assets I had a year ago, and 3.06% of my Net Worth. NW has increased by 24% since I retired 5 years ago and passed a significant milestone number. I’m feeling happy about the sequence of returns.