I was reviewing my 2008 spending on Microsoft Money and I am constantly surprised how much money I am able to spend on frivolous items. This is a breakdown of some of the significant spending categories.
Clothing
$1086.03
For a girl who doesn't find clothing that important, that seems to be a large amount of money. My closet is not overflowing. I wear the same ten outfits to work every two weeks. I always weed out my closet of old and unattractive items. How did I spend so much money.
Food
$7068.32
Broken Down
Dining Out
$3026.91
Groceries
$4041.41
Gasp...Gasp....Gasp.....Shocked Silence.....I guess this is why I never loose any weight. I had no idea that I spent this much money. This includes all household items, cleaning and pet supplies. This breaks down to about $589 per month. OMG...I really need to change this.
In the first quarter of 2009 I have spent $1995.78. This averages out to $665.26 per month. Wow, this is even higher than 2008. In 2007, I spent $6650.87, it averages out to $554.24 per month. Evidently this is a pattern.
I would really like to be down to about $300 a month. What do other single people spend in this category. I think I need a food intervention!
Gifts
$866.92
At least this was less than food and most of it was for Christmas. I would like to be down to less than $400 for 2009. This is going to involve some drastic changes with my Christmas spending. There are just too many children in the family. I guess I can now have a very small, and I mean small, amount of sympathy for my mothers mother who NEVER EVER bought us gifts. She had at least eleven grandchildren and I am sure it was just not affordable.
Books
$631.40
I am surprised that it wasn't more. I am OK with this spending.
Cultural Events
$2017.33
I like to be entertained. To be fair this includes all of the plays that AL and I saw in NYC last summer. She paid for the hotel and I bought the play tickets. Additionally this includes tickets I may have purchased for my friends and when they gave me cash I just used it as spending money. So this isn't a true reflection in this category. I would guess it would have been more like $1200 to $1300 for the year.
Vacation
$6941.92
Yikes...this is the big category. This includes the trip to India/Dubai, NYC and various weekend trips. I am sure I am in line to spend as much in 2009 as I already have several trips planned. I am OK spending this amount of money on vacations as this is my ultimate favorite activity. I just think I need to get some of the other categories in line (uh...Food) to allow for more expenditure here.
I hope you have enjoyed this snapshot of my spending activity.
7 comments:
Wow, you spent more on clothes this year than I did. Of course, I am limiting my spending on clothes until I part with items that no longer fit but are taking up a ton of closet space. I have three walk-in closets and they are all pretty much full.
I just looked at the last 12 months of spending and my number was $7238 for food which includes dining out and grocery and household cleaners diapers ect.
Lou
The biggest expense that I've cut out of my budget is dining out. Hands down. This includes everything from ordering pizza delivery to eating at Ruby Tuesdays. If I'm not buying groceries, it counts as dining out.
In order to cut this down, I withdraw X amount of cash at the beginning of every month. If someone invites me out to eat, and I'm out of cash, I just can't go. It hurts, believe me....but I'm saving money. And I've found lots of fun ways to spend time with friends that costs next to nothing. (like riding bicycles :-) My grocery spending went up a little bit when I did this, but it still didn't total what I was spending on groceries + dining out previously.
This is so hard. Today was the first day I made a conscious effort to not spend any money and all I thought about between 5 and 7 pm was a Starbucks drink. I don't ever go there except for book club. This is going to be extremely hard for me.
Yes...It is hard to believe that I spent more on cloths..the are not very important to me.
Can you believe that Lou spent a similar amount as me but for a family of six. He called today and tried to give me some advise. I think part of it involved me eating at his house more often.
Paul and I do this too each year. Our largest line items always revolve around food and entertainment. Eating in definately helps with budget and waistlines. Perhaps we could do more girl events at each other's homes. It could be progressive or like a pitch in.
I'll go first....dinner and 'Sideways'??
$600 is a lot to spend ... of course it's difficult to figure out exactly where the problem is when you're talking about everything you get at the store plus food. If it were $600 a month in restaurants, that would be easier to identify.
Money decided not to retrieve transactions from USAA back in February or so, and since then I've been using mint.com ... it's free, but doesn't track nearly as much. Also, I spend cash from time to time (I am trying to do that instead of using credit cards as often), which means right now I don't track cash spending.
So anyway, I've probably spent about $600 on food and groceries this month ... that feels a little high, though. I did get stuff at Costco that should last quite a while, but still ... I'd say I probably spend about $500-$550 a month.
I also make no effort to avoid going out ... but I rarely go out for dinner or on Saturday or Sunday. Usually my restaurant meals are lunch Monday through Friday plus one BWW trip on Friday night. (That's kind of different - I buy gift cards in December to get the free $5 GC for every $20 spent, so the rest of the year, I really only spend tip money there.) Breakfast, snacks, and dinner are store-bought food.
I'm also trying not to worry too much about the cost of the food that I buy and more about its quality, so that I know I'm eating decently-balanced meals.
And I've been lazy. Typically about once every two or three weeks, I'll make something like chili or pulled pork and freeze/refrigerate it. That ends up being 10-15 meals' worth of entrees for me. I have a tenderloin in the freezer but haven't made it yet. (Not quite sure how that fits in with the new eating plan.)
But that would be my suggestion; if you don't feel up to cooking every night, find something bigger you can make, cook once or twice a week, and then portion it out right away. Presto: heat-and-eat meals that might be better for you and are definitely cheaper. (As a bonus, if you portion them immediately, it's, well, portion control. Also, if you serve up and store the food, you can then set the cooking dishes in the sink right away and cleanup is that much easier. I might be kind of weird about that, but there are times when I've cleaned up everything I used to cook with before I have a bite of what I made.)
I don't spend much cash but when I do have it I usually spend it on food.
I agree with the cooking thing. I just to plan more and have the food handy so I can eat it when I am hungry. Good Call.
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