Spending in 2013

Today I went through my bank statements for the 2013 calendar year. I added up all the money that exited my bank account in 2013 and my total spent for the year is: $35,599.85

Now in the process I made categories and added up my totals in them. I found it interesting how much I can actually spend in a year and not notice. On a weekly and even monthly basis (monthly is how I budget) it doesn't seem like much, but when you add a whole year up, man! I think Ill be changing some habits that should save us some money.

Note: Mike and I got married last January, and so the total reflects the cost of living for the two of us. Though it is incomplete, because we didn't add Mike to my bank account until we moved to Virginia. Before then he had his own account and would also pay for things from there. I have no idea how much he spent in a year from his account. I asked him how much he thought he may have spent, and he really had no idea. So Im gonna say that since bills and food came from my bank account he only spent like 4,000 from January to August.

Why did I take a whole day and add all these numbers? Am I crazy taking hours to add up amounts and create categories?
The reason why I like to do a whole year is, not only see where our money is actually going, but to better make decisions on how to spend it. Especially as a newly married couple.

One example is the car, when we moved to Virginia, it was an easy thing to see that we wouldn't need two cars, so we sold one. But now that I know how much we spent for the car this year, we can decide if its worth it to keep our one car, or if we might be better off with a car rental or car share program since we don't drive much anymore.
So in the auto and transport category we spent:
     Gas $2016.21
     *Other car $882.69
     Parking $120
     Metro $239
(*other includes maintenance, insurance, etc)

Totaling: $3,257.90. Now, we may choose to look into a car sharing program, approximate how often we would use it and see if it might save us money. Now depending on what we figure out, we may choose to sell the car.
AND, I can make a realistic budged for auto and transport for 2014, and then make my monthly budgets a very real goal.

Food.
We eat!
A lot!
I didn't realize this until I added up all the numbers.
In grocery stores (Walmart, Giant, Walgreens, and Other) we spent a total of $2972.68.
I know that we don't just by groceries at Walmart, and that Walgreens is a pharmacy. But we mostly buy groceries at Walmart, and really if we do go to Walgreens its for last minute needed items or snacks. This category also includes, laundry, personal care, house cleaning items, etc.

Now, in eating out. Welp! our total for the year is $2289.01.
We ate at over 60 restaurants. We spent the most at Chick-Fil-A with $333 for the year, Qdoba came in at second place with a total of $256 and Chipotle in third only $20 behind second place.

Shopping!
Clothes stores total was $800. I really don't know if we should have more and better clothes to show for this amount. But we were very much in need of some new clothes that we got for Christmas this year. Such a blessing!
Ikea $177
Home Depot and Lowes came in at $1320, which is high but makes sense, we did do some work on the house in Joplin and finished paying off the Lowes credit card that still had some on it from the actual house renovations.
Craft surprisingly at only $225. So all that creative energy came out, and Im surprised it didn't cost more.
There is always that "other" category, this time at $79

Entertainment.
A pretty wide definition of entertainment.
Movies came it at $445. A bit of a surprise, and I included the popcorn in this figure.
Amazon and Books, this includes Mike's law books for the Fall semester, not so much entertainment, but it sort off fits in this category with a total of $1,113
Apple, I got my computer in May, and I love it, really, I wouldn't be writing this blog without it. Total cost of my new one, plus some repairs to Mikes computer brings us to $1,434
Vacation and Sporting goods. This is the actual category with all the fun things, including the lift tickets for our Colorado Ski Trip, expenses from our eloping, bike accessories, all years hotels, and our season pass for paddle boarding for the 2014 season came to a total of $2,212.

Our biggest category, coming in at $11,755 is our Home and Utilities. This is the one category that is due to grow the most in 2014.
Gas- $405
Water- $682
Electricity- $660
Home Insurance- $477
These are all the expenses from the house in Joplin, pretty inexpensive when it comes down to it.
The big ticket item is RENT that we are now paying here in Virginia coming in at $8,250 for 5 months.
The most upsetting amount, is the Internet/Phone. For the year we spent $1277, don't really know how that happened, and I kind of feel like it should be considerable less, but the numbers don't lie.

My last category, which could have been the bank breaker, is what I put under "health". A category to keep track of for sure!
My insurance for the year came out to $1308. Its not the best coverage, considered more of a catastrophic plan than anything else. Which is a good thing, if I remember correctly, by bills from just the chopper ride off the mountain in Alaska were over $18,000. In the end, we have paid for my broken ankle at about $3000 and counting (Im still making payments on the biggest bill). Ill keep some insurance thank you very much, you never know when Ill decide to jump off something else.
I also am including Running in this category, I do spend money on it, mostly in good shoes and races, this last year it totaled $346.64. This is a category I'm planning on spending more in this 2014 year! Starting with the Nation's Triathlon in September, (by starting I mean paying for the enrollment, I hope I can do a 5k or 10k this spring)

And last but not least. The *other* category. This includes randoms like the US postal service, charity, random school expenses, and such. It totals $2035.69. I was surprised at what few things actually ended up in the *other* category.

When you round up, it comes to $40,000 for the two of us. Which really I think is not bad for a year in which we:
-Got Married
-Moved Mike from Houston to Joplin
-Ski Trip to Colorado
- Half Marathon in Joplin
- Alaska trip (mostly post trip medical bills)
- Moved to the Washington DC area
- Started Law School
and had many more adventures in-between.


In my next post, I will be making my budget for 2014.