2021 Spending Summary…A Year in Review
Here it is! My year in review of 2021 Expenses. Truth be told, I never used to track my expenses…like, ever. I sat down with THE JL Collins at the Portugal 2021 Chataqua for my one on one with him. (This was SO cool and I will undoubtedly talk about this event in future blogs!) It was during this meeting that I realized that I had no idea what my life actually costs. I did not budget (and still don’t) because I always saved a fair amount and figured it did not matter. It turns out that budgeting and expense tracking are actually two very separate things. They are often used together but not always. As I learned more about the FIRE (financially independent/retire early) movement, it finally fully registered that I NEEDED to start doing this. I could not save for something with an unknown price tag.
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So in January of 2020, I downloaded the free version of Dave Ramsey’s Every Dollar app on my phone. I finally started tracking. At the end of the month, I would then write all of the expenses into a line item in my financial journal and then total it up at the end of the year. At age 46, this is only the second full year I have fully tracked all expenses. Let’s dive in to the categories!
Church and Charity ($3781.50) - This includes weekly donations to my church and any other churches I may visit throughout the year. I also donate to Charity Water and Unbound on a monthly basis. There are a few miscellaneous donations to various causes like the Sisters of St. Francis, Catholic Charities, etc. I honestly have no idea why my donations were approximately $1300 LESS than last year and it makes me feel a little bit badly. Things just got away from me, even though I do a lot of automatic donations. This is an area that I hope to improve next year.
Utilities ($2154.75) - This includes water, gas and electric and is almost exactly what it was last year.
Snow and Lawn Service ($1002.50) - I do pay for a service to come mow my lawn and plow snow. The price has gradually increased over the years (and I do realize this is somewhat of a luxury) but it’s just SO convenient.
Internet ($558.00) - I think this is pretty standard. I actually experimented with NOT having home internet for almost a year after I returned from my deployment in 2019. (This explains why the cost is so much less in 2020 - I did not have the service!).
Cell phone ($719.17) - I have an Xfinity unlimited cell phone plan and no land line.
Car gasoline ($920.23) - Wow! This expense increased by over double and completely makes sense. I have a 2008 Honda Fit that gets fairly good gas mileage (28 to 34 miles/gallon). I just did not drive that much in 2020 due to everything closing and the encouragement to stay home.
Car Maintenance and Insurance ($2660.98) - This was a HUGE increase over last year. I have been driving my current car for almost 14 years (future post likely)!. It has 190K miles on it. This is the first year that I have started to have some issues with it. I also was driving a borrowed car (extra family car my Dad owns) for several months that needed a repair ($689.00). This is included in the total number.
Groceries ($2294.83) - Pretty standard and almost identical to last year.
Restaurants ($4065.62) - This breaks down to about $339/month. I could definitely do better here. This does include occasionally paying for our families weekly ‘after church’ brunch, which can be $80-90.
Meal subscription boxes ($1263.78) - This is something that I tried for the first time in 2020 but did not use as much in 2021. I subscribed to Daily Harvest and Freshly sporadically. I ultimately discontinued both.
Fun money ($1897.14) - This is kind of like a miscellaneous category in some ways. This year, this category was comprised of purchasing books for my Kindle, chocolate/other snack foods (not sure why I didn’t categorize this under groceries), Arboretum membership, occasional alcohol purchase, soap making supplies, a few pedicures, ITunes purchases, a Fabfitfun subscription (I know, I know), and a few other expenses that probably should have been categorized as ‘entertainment’. This is a great example of why expense tracking is so valuable. Some of these items could have been placed into a different category. This is a great category to truly examine a bit more in detail. I spent on $1900 on what, exactly? You get the picture.
Toiletries ($238.78) - Pretty standard and probably on the low side for most people.
Subscriptions ($162.83) - This was for ITunes Match, storage and Apple Music. I currently do not have any Netflix, Hulu, etc, but that may change this year. I also dropped Amazon prime, which was HUGE for me!
Household goods ($2528.05) - This was normal household stuff (batteries, cleaning supplies, toilet paper) and also one large purchase, a new couch! I actually found a new Joybird couch at a Restore for $1800. This may not sound like a huge discount, but the brand new cost was $6000!
Clothing ($386.83) - This was several new sets of scrubs and a winter coat (also from a thrift store).
Gifts ($1746.71) - This included all Christmas and birthday gifts.
Pet care ($5064.50) - This expense proves that even veterinarians pay A LOT for their pets. I currently have one cat and one dog. (One cat passed away later 2021 so two cats for most of the year, expense wise.) This number includes food, cat litter, preventatives, dental cleanings on each pet and one major surgery on my dog that was beyond my comfort level.
Entertainment/Travel ($2218.48) - This expense increased from last year as I finally was able to do a bit of travel. I went to visit good friends in Puerto Rico, Las Vegas and Colorado. Travel rewards were also heavily utilized!
Miscellaneous ($1511.85) - Holy crap - See Fun Money comments! Upon reviewing this expense, I realized that this comprised mostly of a personal growth class ($997) and my tax return fees ($475).
Medications/Doctor visits ($1377.09) - This was the cost for a few chronic medications, a sleep supplement, dental and medical appointments.
Relief vet expenses and continuing education - ($6943.24) - Ugh. I already told you in my previous post how much this one hurts and all the reasons why. See ‘The Truth is….I’m Terrified’ for more details.
The total spending for this year was (drum roll, please) $53,764.79! This was $14,677.22 MORE than I spend last year. This is mostly because of relief vet expenses, increased pet care expenses, and the world opening up (just a smidge) to allow for some travel. Oh yeah, and a new couch!
As I start on this new adventure of developing my blog, it is hard to know exactly how much to share about personal financial details. Part of me wants to do monthly net worth blogs and everything! Another part of me is cautioning me to not share TOO much. You probably will notice that I do not have a mortgage payment listed. I cannot hide this, even if I wanted to! So instead I will embrace it and definitely roll out a post about being mortgage free in the future. (It’s surprisingly very controversial in the personal finance/FIRE space!)
