How much did you spend in 2006?

[REWahoo]

I didn't think the purpose was to make comparisons. I thought there could only be 2 reasons:
A. A subtle suggestion to everyone to track their spending, so they could spend more or spend less if they wanted to.
-or-
B. A chance to ask nords about his charitable contributions.

You forgot about...

C. A chance to brag about reveal how cheap judicious you are squeezing every hard-earned nickel managing your spending.

 

[Khan]

You forgot about...

C. A chance to brag about reveal how cheap judicious you are squeezing every hard-earned nickel managing your spending.

How many other places can you brag about NOT spending?

 

[Bikerdude]

Quote from: LOL! on Today at 10:36:02 PM
I didn't think the purpose was to make comparisons. I thought there could only be 2 reasons:
A. A subtle suggestion to everyone to track their spending, so they could spend more or spend less if they wanted to.
-or-
B. A chance to ask nords about his charitable contributions.

You forgot about...

C. A chance to brag about reveal how cheap judicious you are squeezing every hard-earned nickel managing your spending.



OK. Now I get it.

 

[DRiP Guy]

I'm not sure what anyone else's motivations are for sharing such personal information, but I think those observing (and that most certainly includes me) find it all of some probative value. For instance, I took the opportunity to compare my percentages by category against a pretty well-accepted success story, Billy and Akaisha. I noted right away that the percentages were not too far out of whack from what I would have expected, but that notably different was one category -- my med expenses are nil. As a young, single, healthy (knock on wood) non-retiree (yet) that certainly makes sense, but I need to factor that additional percentage into my forward looking budget and make sure I still cover all the other bases, too if I want to FI/RE and stay that way. I would imagine I could do a lot worse than to use the percentage they have as a planning number.

 

[free4now]

This was a good thread because it motivated me to do the calculation. My bank let me download a "spending report" into excel. I had to do a lot of data massage to eliminate transfers and duplicates, but a couple of hours later I have the data. I basically just added up all the money that left my checking account and didn't go into any other accounts.

During this year I was working for the first two months, and then living FIRE'd for the last 10 months. I'm single but have a roomate living in a room in my condo. In calculating the housing expenditure I deducted the rent he pays me to arrive at the reported figure.

Cash $8,022.00
Checks $6,205.72
Credit cards $18,830.04
Paypal $441.96
Housing $15,294.92
Gas and Electric $945.21
Car Insurance $936.00
Telephone $245.41

Total: $50,921.26 (does not include taxes paid)

 

[Spanky]

About $50K (taxes not included).

 

[Nords]

B. A chance to ask nords about his charitable contributions.

We still don't have a clue, but let's see what's in our Quicken records.

We handed out our usual $100 to an outstanding teacher, but now that our kid's in high school we have to watch out that she doesn't get the "honored" teacher again before she graduates. That's not a charitable contribution anyway, it just makes us feel good.

We donated $20 to the National Military Families Association when we joined Pentagon FCU, of course. We also gave another $40 when we attended events at the USS MISSOURI Memorial and the USS BOWFIN Memorial. Over the last year we also bought a dozen or so boxes of fundraiser cookies & Zippy's chili. Last week was the annual massive Goodwill run, which TurboTax will probably value around $250.

I've looked at Charity Navigator & Guidestar, both of which seem to be useful at screening charities by their fundraising and their spending. The highest-rated local groups appear to be the Institute for Human Services (homeless shelters, kitchens, counseling) and the Hawaii Foodbank. Our kid has spent some volunteer time at IHS and they seem to do a good job. I've had my attention directed toward the local Ronald McDonald houses, a couple other family shelters, and Habitat for Humanity but I haven't checked their finances yet. It's hard to feel good about helping a charity that's paying their president or CEO a $150K salary.

We just haven't found something that we really want to support. One of the reasons we give $100 to a teacher is so that they can circumvent the bureaucracy to do the right thing for them and their students that otherwise would be drowned in the paperwork. (Not that we ever had that problem as military instructors!) 100% of the money goes to its intended purpose and there's no overhead. We'd feel the same about anonymously picking up the textbook costs for a college student we know, or dropping off a load of canned goods at the food bank. I guess even for charity we keep trying to get the most value for our bucks.

But so far our efforts have been random attempts to find something that feels right. I'd rather drop $1000 on one charity that's going to do a great job than to scatter $100 to 10 charities, and until we find that one we're not spending much money.

 

[DRiP Guy]

How many other places can you brag about NOT spending?

he he he

 

[Martha]

This thread really has motivated me, now that both Greg and I are retired. It caught me early enough in the year so we can track spending from the get go. So far, $7.58 at Mr. Movies.

 

[WilliamG]

A little over $83k. Have been retired approx 7 years. Have detail on Quicken, but big hitters were:
$7k vacation and travel
$10k gifts to children
$13k medical

over $8k of medical was to retiree medical insurance with former employer. not subsidized as much as when working, but worth every penny.

 

[donheff]

I don't have the free time patience of Nords to type out all of the line items from this year.

Total spending was up 9% to 96,511.08. Some interesting (to me at least) side notes

Taxes made up almost 45% of my spending.

Saluki:

I am surprised to see 45% tax on $96.5K gross. My tax situation now is distorted by DW's complicated income. My test runs in turbo tax for anticipated taxes after she retires keep me lower than that with more income. Can you break those taxes down for me -- I'm worried I am not thinking of something

 

[Martha]

Saluki:

I am surprised to see 45% tax on $96.5K gross. My tax situation now is distorted by DW's complicated income. My test runs in turbo tax for anticipated taxes after she retires keep me lower than that with more income. Can you break those taxes down for me -- I'm worried I am not thinking of something

I believe Saluki was talking about spending, not income. His income is likely considerably higher than $96,500. If that was total income, taxes most certainly would be lower.

 

[dm]

I didn't include my income tax, only my real estate and PP taxes. It is nice to see what others are spending to get an idea how you compare. I know I spent alot last year but there were several one time expenses.

My goal is to get our expenses down to around $50,000 to $60,000 a year after tax. My plan is to retire around july and the wife will retire in 2008. With the kids finally out of college and out of the house hopefully our costs will go down.

I also set up a spreadsheet to keep better track of where the money goes for this year.

 

[Dawg52]

I'm embarrassed to post mine but not including income taxes, around $24,000. I'm still working so that is why I didn't include income taxes. It would be much much more if I included that.

2007 will include a new car, golf cart and more travel so I won't get a good handle on my normal retirement budget/spending until 2008.

 

[Dreamer]

I am motivated to track our spending in 2007 also. I never seem to do it for very long though. Just out of curiousity, when one goes to a Super Wal-Mart or someplace similar and you buy lots of different things, such as groceries, toiletries, clothing, pet supplies, misc, do you go home and sort out the different categories? It just seems like such a hassle or am I being too anal about it and that is why I don't keep up with it.

My DH does not like to tell me where he spends his money. He normally spends alot more than I do, unless I am on one of my trips. In the back of my mind, I am asking myself if I really want to start keeping track right now, because I am leaving for Hawaii at 4:00 AM tomorrow. Do I really want to write down everytime I buy a snack and do I really want to know how much I spent?

How does everyone stay motivated to keep track of it all?

 

[DRiP Guy]

One of the big advantages of using S/W like Quicken is that it will categorize spending relatively automatically into buckets. When you fill up at Chevron, it will know that is fuel. When you purchase from Auto Zone, that goes to Auto maint, groceries, etc. It is not perfect, of course, but it does a pretty good job. You can help your own accuracy by not getting a weekly gob of cash at the ATM and then buying things that way, but by instead using your debit card so that all of those charges show up electronically as they occur.

 

[REWahoo]

I am motivated to track our spending in 2007 also. I never seem to do it for very long though. Just out of curiousity, when one goes to a Super Wal-Mart or someplace similar and you buy lots of different things, such as groceries, toiletries, clothing, pet supplies, misc, do you go home and sort out the different categories? It just seems like such a hassle or am I being too anal about it and that is why I don't keep up with it.

My DH does not like to tell me where he spends his money. He normally spends alot more than I do, unless I am on one of my trips. In the back of my mind, I am asking myself if I really want to start keeping track right now, because I am leaving for Hawaii at 4:00 AM tomorrow. Do I really want to write down everytime I buy a snack and do I really want to know how much I spent?

How does everyone stay motivated to keep track of it all?

Everyone has to find their own path to enlightenment tracking spending, and there are many ways to do it short of tracking every nickel spent by category. I'm not too hot on keeping track of everything in detail, and no way DW would even consider it. So, here's how we ended up doing it (for reference, we're both retired):

We each take responsibility for certain areas of spending and only track the total amount by category - she buys all the groceries and household supplies and I pay for everything else. We agreed on a certain amount of cash to be deposited in her checking account each month and she spends that on groceries, hair and nail jobs or whatever...we don't track any details. If she buys something that falls in my area of responsibility, she uses a credit card to pay for it so I will have a record and can track the amount.

I also have a monthly amount for misc. expenses (eating out mostly) which isn't tracked other than the gross amount. But I do track all major categories: utilites, insurance, taxes, gasoline, phone...all items that I get an invoice or CC bill for.

This isn't going to work for everyone, but it does the trick for us.

My advice is to start somewhere, and you will find what will work for you.

 

[Bikerdude]

How does everyone stay motivated to keep track of it all?

Once you’re retired keeping track of expenses to me is mandatory especially if your FireCalc runs are below 95% SWR. I setup a budget on a spreadsheet for each year based upon my SWR. I do it on a month to month tracking basis. Line items per month for example are cash, charge cards, insurance, taxes, medical, gifts, travel, heating oil and utilities. $$ not spent in one month can be transferred to another month.

I don't break it down any finer than that and it works great for me.

 

[Dreamer]

Thanks for the inputs. I usually put most everything on a credit card and pay it off at the end of the month. I can see on the cc statements, where the money goes, but I would have a hard time figuring what category Wal-Mart would be since I buy so many different things there and seem to go there quite frequently-at least a couple of times per month.

 

[saluki9]

I am motivated to track our spending in 2007 also. I never seem to do it for very long though. Just out of curiousity, when one goes to a Super Wal-Mart or someplace similar and you buy lots of different things, such as groceries, toiletries, clothing, pet supplies, misc, do you go home and sort out the different categories? It just seems like such a hassle or am I being too anal about it and that is why I don't keep up with it.



How does everyone stay motivated to keep track of it all?

Maybe it's because I've been doing it so long, it doesn't seem like that much of a problem to do it. My Quicken files go back to when I was 16 (I'm 29 now) so it's just part of my life. And, yes when I go to Target or Walmart I do just sit there and use the built in calculator on Quicken to sort out the different categories. I do it every day when I wake up, takes maybe 2 minutes max a day.

 

[LOL!]

I am motivated to track our spending in 2007 also. I never seem to do it for very long though. Just out of curiousity, when one goes to a Super Wal-Mart or someplace similar and you buy lots of
...
How does everyone stay motivated to keep track of it all?

Years ago, a sweepstakes place wanted to count who ordered magazines and who didn't. With all the responses going to the same PO Box, it was a chore to sort things. So they had the PostOffice do the sorting for them by using 2 different addresses.

We do something similar with credit cards. I've never downloaded a credit card statement and worked through the sorting. I use one credit card for gas, one for groceries. They both maximize cash back for gas and groceries. I use another card for eating out, travel and everything else which maximizes cash back for those things. I guess I could get use yet other cards, but that's all the detail that I need. After "income taxes" our biggest category is "CreditCard". We don't follow a budget, so this is all we need.

Here's another idea to help you sort things out. We use a single checkbook register for all checks written to charities. That way, we don't have to go sort through old registers when doing our taxes. (Yes, these are also downloading into MSMoney, but they are all together by check order; yes, I could have it pull up "charitable donations", but ....)

 

[rs0460a]

Maybe it's because I've been doing it so long, it doesn't seem like that much of a problem to do it. And, yes when I go to Target or Walmart I do just sit there and use the built in calculator on Quicken to sort out the different categories. I do it every day when I wake up, takes maybe 2 minutes max a day.

Exactly! The hardest part is to set up the category on Quicken the first time. From then on, it's almost automatic.

For ease, I used the worksheets provided by the Fidelity Incommer Planner tool and match it by category on Quicken. It is then easy to see where I'm "out of sync" vs. my budget, and also allows me to reforcast based upon current (e.g. last year's) actual budget information to track my "level of success" on the Fidelity tool.

- Ron

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

interesting for me to see my budget from drip guy's percentage perspective. when i first look at how much i spend on automobile (20% of my $47k# including insurance) my ol'man comes to mind and he's calling me trailer trash. for him a car was just to get from point a to point b but i totally love cars, love horse power. luckily i didn't have money when i was younger or i'd be dead today.

if i were to pay off my mortgage which i can in 2007, my housing costs (including insurance, taxes & utilities) would total $10,669/yr, or 28% of the 37k budget. that's only $889/month to live in a $4-500k house. not too shabby. the ol'man would be pleased.

my protection insurance percentage makes me think: my life, brought to you by the mob. 26% of my $49k budget or, yikes, 33% of my $37k budget. granted my number is somewhat padded. i'm projecting 100% increased wind insurance even though we might not get hit that bad (this year) and i've included spending my entire medical deductible, unlikely but ya never know.

this really does help me think about how i spend money and how different lifestyles would effect these percentage allocations, maybe bringing my retirement satisfaction up a notch or ten. even if i just take that automobile and house percentages, wow, that would add up to some nice non-stop travel money. of course, first i'll have to see if i really like travel. hmmm, i think i'm going to like this retirement thing.

 

[Dreamer]

Thanks again for the interesting replies.

I find it very interesting to see what amounts of money people spend in the different categories.

LG4N: My DH loves his horsepower also. I hate to think what we spend on cars including gas and ins and this "just one thing more that I want to do to the vette". Of course, this category would also have to include entertainment for my DH because it is what he loves to do!

 

[kcowan]

We throw all receipts in a shoebox. Once a year we go through and sum up by category. Takes about 3 hours for 2 of us. Keeps us informed of spending trends. Only started after retirement.

We may stop since our spending is below our SWR for the 4th year. We keep a running total each month using our bank download and gross up, e.g. 12/5 x our May ytd.

Might use the CC reports in lieue.