How much did you spend in 2006?

[Nords]

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.

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?

You have to be anal motivated. And yes, we use Quicken's "split" feature to track transactions with multiple categories. I even split the credit-card rebates among the various categories according to their weighted percentages.

I think the motivation comes from seeing the progress toward your goals and from being able to answer questions like "How's our entertainment spending doing?" or "When's the last time we had to fix this $%&^ car?!?"

I wouldn't try to start the New Year's resolution in Hawaii, especially since you're paying visitor prices and will rapidly be discouraged by the apparent trend!

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.

Same here... we've been tracking everything since 1992 and have over 100K transactions. Habit eventually takes over if the motivation doesn't.

You shouldn't make yourself miserable. For example, spouse will mark up her receipts to show me the splits, but she lets me do all the data entry. If tracking everything seems to be too much work, then start on something that you'd like to track-- one or two categories like entertainment or groceries. Then add more if you're motivated!

 

[Retire Soon]

auto 2,051
bank charges 53
books 160
charity 648
clothing 779
computer 67
DW's Spending money 1,735
dining 3,351
entertainment 4,069
finance charges 127
gasoline 1,769
gifts 2,137
groceries 2,594
household maintenance 8,969
insurance 1,701
magazines 96
medical 3,261
mortgage 8,244
moving costs 7,411
newspaper 260
personal care 585
pet care 1,304
photos 83
property taxes 2,448
spell checker 29
taxes (income) 6,434
utilities 5,954
vacation 3,175
work related expenses 750

We spent a grand total of $70,244 in 2006. I've been keeping track of all of our expenses carefully using arithmatic arithmetic after reading Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez about a year and a half ago. If you plan to FIRE and haven't already read this book, I highly recommend it. I expect our expenses to be about $50,000 in 2007. They will be much less because: 1) We no longer have a house payment. 2) We spent tons of money on getting our house ready to sell last year. 3) We moved to a different state. 4) We both FIRE'd and no longer will pay as much in income tax, commuting expenses, clothing, office gifts, etc. 5) We won't be spending nearly as much on utilities after escaping the hot summers of East San Diego County and leaving our pool & spa behind. 5) The state we live in does not have a sales tax. 6) We've learned a heck of a lot from "Early Retirement Forum."

 

[CybrMike]

About $600K for taxes.
$100K remodeling home

$200K living expenses (cars, house, etc).

 

[Jarhead*]

About $600K for taxes.
$100K remodeling home

$200K living expenses (cars, house, etc).

Buddy, can you spare a dime? 8)

 

[Dawg52]

Buddy, can you spare a dime? 8)

He must be the $10M guy.

 

[scrinch]

$100K personal expenses (incl one college tuition)
$115K government expenses (state, fed, ss, medicare)

Big year for us and the government. Not likely to be repeated anytime soon.

 

[mountaintosea]

I have to laugh after the last two posts, but here goes...without the detail

$23,427 expenses (actually I'm surprised)

$43,000 taxes; includes property taxes, income, and estimated.

Yes I'm single, no debt, no mortgage. (I realize it makes a big difference, however I don't have that second stream of income either!)

I also keep track of almost every penney, since reading Your Money or Your Life in 1998. It's a habit. I keep a small spirial notebook in my car and just write down as I spend during the day.

 

[free4now]

I think categorizing religiously is worthwhile for a few months if you really don't know where your money goes. But once you have done it a little while and have that data, I don't think it's worth doing all the time.

And being religious about categorization can sometimes even inhibit savings... for instance while I was categorizing I only used a single credit card for all purchases because that one was electronically synced. But when I stopped categorizing I was free to use various credit cards for different purchases, so as to take advantage of the different rewards the different cards offered. Another example is that while I was categorizing I would avoid gas stations that accepted cash only, even if they were cheaper.

What I think I'm going to do for 2007 is simply have one checking account for spending only, out of which all my expenses are paid. That will just get one transfer in every month. Then I will have another checking account used exclusively for transfers and funding(depositing checks, transfering between financial accounts, etc). The biggest problem with tracking spending for me is simply avoiding double-accounting for money that gets transferred through different accounts. Double-reporting just a few big transactions can totally distort your results making them almost useless.

 

[eyeonFI]

I don't keep track as I go, but pretty much all my money gets run through my checking account, so I download all the transactions from that, sort them, loook at my last paystub to add in items that don't go through the account (automatic payroll deductions for insurance, parking, etc), and subtract out expenses I was reimbursed by work. This whole process just took me about 45 minutes.

For 2006, that gives me total expenditures of $67,592. (not including taxes)

That includes $22,020 paid on my mortgage (which I plan to finish paying this May), $10,400 on some personal expenses that should stop soon/won't be recurring, and $6,400 on a new furnace and A/C, which also will hopefully go for 20+ years now. So I figure about $28k - $30k on my "normal" living expenses. A little higher than last year, but lower than what I estimated I would spend at the start of the year ($31k).

 

[Barnstormer]

DW the spender, did an admirable job fighting the urge to accommodate her "constant state of want". Well, at least she stayed within the the budget. Here's the numbers.

New Car -- $12,650 + trade-in...my fault...dinged the old one
Insurance -- $2661
Medical -- $405
Mortgage -- $15,354
Property Tax -- $3,237
Cable TV -- $147
Electric -- $2,475
Heating Oil -- $1,085
Phone/Internet -- $1,263
Water/Sewer -- $524
Treadmill -- $2,098
Groceries -- $9,762
Vacations -- $9,365
Household (everything else) -- $38,007

Total Spent for 2006 -- $99,031

 

[JustCurious]

It seems that most people follow the "bottom up" approach of tracking their spending. That is, they keep track of every dollar in Quicken or a spreadsheet, and then add up all of the spending at the end of the year. I used to do it that way using MSMoney, and it did help me quite a bit to see where things were going, and it helped me to control my spending.

However, once I had my spending under control, after a while, I found that approach to be too time consuming and too much of a hassle. Now, I follow the "top down" approach to tracking our spending. I have a spreadsheet that keeps track of our gross income, with deductions for taxes, retirement contributions, etc. As long as we are meeting our savings goals (25 percent of gross income) and paying our fair share of taxes, then I feel comfortable spending whatever is left over. As long as we don't incur any debt, then I know that we spent X, which is GROSS INCOME, MINUS PAYROLL TAXES, MINUS SAVINGS. I really don't care what spending falls into which particular category anymore.

 

[dmpi]

Household (everything else) -- $38,007

You don't drug habit, right?

 

[Barnstormer]

Remember my DW....."constant state of want" :

 

[haha]

People need to tell me if I dress like a slob. Only $500 on new clothes in the last 2 years.

Not much room for Ermenegildo Zegna here.

Ha

 

[deserat]

Too lazy to type it all -have been using Quicken for a long time - Your Money or Your Life was also my motivation

Overall - spent ~80K -saved 60K - scary breakdown was highest percentage outside of savings was taxes which were 50% of expenditures - yikes!

Deserat

 

[Meadbh]

Not much room for Ermenegildo Zegna here.

Ha

Ermenegildo who?

 

[haha]

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.

I think your motivation might have been to use that word.

Ha

 

[haha]

I'm embarrassed to post mine but not including income taxes, around $24,000.

Dog, your feeling of embarrassment is interesting. A couple years ago we might have been embarrassed to admit that we spent more than that.

Maybe a bull market effect?

Ha

 

[DRiP Guy]

I think your motivation might have been to use that word.

Ha

heh heh heh ... almost made ya say "probative"...

 

[Meadbh]

Ermenegildo who?

Never mind......I am now more informed about What Men Wear, courtesy of Google and Wikipedia. I see that "Most Zegna suits cost in the US$2,000 - $3,000 range". This girl has never paid more than $500 for any outfit, ever, and it's been a long time since I paid more than $300. I can't wait to RE and wear casuals every day!

 

[Khan]

Spent
$19.13 dining out
$20.00 clothes
$71.81 gasoline
$148.09 car maintenance
$2000 charity
---------
USED
266.3 CCF water
2780 KWH
607 CCF natural Gas
29.232 Gallon Gasoline
------------

This is fun, I'll have more numbers later.

 

[dmpi]

Spent
$19.13 dining out

I would have super sized it.

 

[CaptCurmudgeon]

Splitting sub-accounts out of Wal-Mart receipts? Probably not worth it. We have an accounting bucket called Food and Household Supplies in which we record all Wal-mart, Kroger and the like. If something is obviously different, such as a TV, we take that out. This bucket was $740 / month in 2006 for DW and I in Central MS.

The value to me of the effort to establish these numbers is to help control spending. Left to my own devices I will spend like an idiot; knowing I will have to face up and record it later helps me avoid wasteful spending.

Bookworm and I will pull the trigger later this year and emigate to the Roanoke Valley of Va. We are planning on a $60K spending budget which includes $13K in mortgage.

 

[HFWR]

Probative? Doesn't that belong in the colonoscopy thread...

Let's see...

$20k savings and investment
$20k income and payroll tax
$25k basic expenses, like mortgage, utilities, food, insurance
And an alarming amount to booze and hookers unknown...

 

[saluki9]

Not much room for Ermenegildo Zegna here.

Ha

No, there isn't. I dropped about $2-3K and Brooks Brothers a couple years ago and the clothes have held up well.

Then again, we had an important family function this fall and my parents we so worried about what my suits would look like that they bought me a $900 one from Nordstrom. Maybe they are trying to tell me something?