We spent $30,603 in 2020📉, which is a big reduction from previous years. This is mostly due to covid since we were unable to go on the Europe trip we had planned for April.
💸Here’s our spending history:
2017 Spent $38,952
2018 Spent $38,798
2019 Spent $37,854
2020 Spent $30,603
📊By Category:
$6906 Food🥡 (all groceries, restaurants, alcohol, coffee)
$4271 Utilities💡
$4172 Gifts and Donations🎁
$3531 Travel✈️ (cancelled Europe flights + camper supplies)
$2760 Transportation🚗 (mostly insurance)
$2618 Taxes (Property taxes)🧾
$2152 Home🏡 (mostly insurance)
$819 Health and Fitness🏃♀️ (Doctor and dentist)
$788 Entertainment🎮 (video games and streaming)
$736 Pets🐕 (kibble and vet)
$671 Shopping🛍️ (clothes + electronics)
$669 Personal Care💅 (personal hygiene)
$250 Fees (Tax prep)🧾
$222 Education (Books + online courses)📚
$37 Business Services (Post office)💌
Why do we track our annual spending by category?
- So that we can estimate how much money we plan to save each year. I initially wanted to know how much debt we would be able to pay off each year and now we calculate how much money we will have to save and invest each year.
- More accurate monthly budgeting. It pissed me off when we first started budgeting that I would forget about birthdays, holidays and other annual/infrequent expenses. Since we have the total for the year, we can now divide by 12 to know about how much we can spend or how much we need to set aside each month.
FOR DISCUSSION:
👉Did your spending increase or decrease in 2020?
👉Do you track your annual spending by category?