Poll

Annual spending so far?

I will come under budget this year
I will be over budget this yeat
I will be right on budget this year

Author Topic: How is your annual spending so far?  (Read 9286 times)

mm31

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How is your annual spending so far?
« on: August 21, 2013, 10:35:34 PM »
As I've been looking over my spending so far, I've noticed that I'm on track to spend the limit I set for myself. I've spent 17k so far and should have no trouble staying at or under 24k. How about you? How are you doing so far?

One thing that I've noticed I did not count are irregular expenses like car gas (I don't drive much), health insurance (I'm on someone else's and I pay a lump sum every year), and taxes. I'll get better at this though. I'd like to hear from other people on this.

Nudelkopf

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2013, 01:36:24 AM »
I'm technically under.. But only because I moved back home. So, I count it as over.

lauren_knows

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #2 on: August 22, 2013, 06:30:44 AM »
This will be the first full year with our kid (he's about 1.5yrs old) and Mint.com tells me we're going to be 10-12% higher than last year.  That does include a few thousand dollars to refi the mortgage, so I don't feel too terrible.  Having someone at home 24/7 sure does increase utility bills... and my 1.5yr old is frequently eating as much as my wife does at a meal!

Paul der Krake

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #3 on: August 22, 2013, 06:48:17 AM »
Too much travelling that is out of my control. Will be slightly over budget. On the plus side, this transition year should be a one time thing and I have taken steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.

oldtoyota

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #4 on: August 22, 2013, 07:32:02 AM »
I look at it a different way. Instead of giving myself a cap, I make sure I'm saving 60-80% of take-home pay. Then, I try to keep expenses low. I have not yet thought about my expenses in terms of sticking to an annual numerical goal.

Do you count annual spending to include the pre-tax items taken out of take-home pay or just what you spend out of the take-home pay?


matchewed

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #5 on: August 22, 2013, 08:00:45 AM »
Never really looked at my numbers this way. I checked this morning and I'm 500 over "budget" (I don't really follow a strict budget I just have Mint with some arbitrary numbers thrown in so I can see trends in spending).

Zikoris

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #6 on: August 22, 2013, 08:07:06 AM »
Me and boyfriend are at $12,500 so far, about $1100 behind where we were last year, so we're happy.

simonsez

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #7 on: August 22, 2013, 08:13:00 AM »
Coming in at budget.  I have a minimum amount I keep in the bank which will be the same at the end of 2013 as it was at the beginning of 2013.  The take-home pay = what I spend.  Any OT goes 100% toward extra student loan payments, so a net of zero.  I know I am answering the question differently than others but I don't really have a strict budget.  Just whatever is left after rent, food, cc payments, automated loan payments, and utilities gets thrown at more student loans.

wing117

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #8 on: August 22, 2013, 08:15:52 AM »
Great topic!

Just checked for the year. I don't have my January/February information as I hadn't started using Mint yet, but I'm currently sitting at $15,860. If we assume the average cost each month for Jan/Feb I'm coming in at 19,708 for the year.

Not bad for having really discovered MMM around February and not implementing anything till a couple months afterwards. The averages puts me at $27,308 for the year. That will be over for next year's budget (24K), but under for this year (I was estimating ~32-35K)

Considering that last year I spent 50K+, that's a helluva improvement!

Rebecca Stapler

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #9 on: August 22, 2013, 08:20:28 AM »
We will be under budget for the budget we set at the beginning of the year, before we significantly slashed expenses. I believe that we will be slightly under budget even for the months since slashing the budget.

kolorado

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #10 on: August 22, 2013, 11:39:17 AM »
Accidentally clicked "Over" when we should be "On Target". I'm a bit sleep deprived....

savingtofreedom

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #11 on: August 22, 2013, 03:17:28 PM »
I think we will always be over budget as I view my budget as a stretch goal that I rarely make but that helps continue to keep my spending in check.

marty998

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #12 on: August 22, 2013, 03:43:16 PM »
I'm coming in well under. The mortgage has been absolutely slaughtered this year, and with rate cuts it now costs only $20 a day in interest.

Saved bits here and there on car insurance and petrol, but most other items have gone up 5-6%, rates and bills never seem to match inflation!!

EMP

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #13 on: August 22, 2013, 04:23:03 PM »
Well, I'm on track to spend 20% of my gross on medical bills this year, so there's that.  Can't say I was surprised or even unprepared it just made me a little sad to realize how much it was.

good thing the baby's cute!

Myrmida

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #14 on: August 22, 2013, 04:25:53 PM »
Bizarrely, I hadn't considered creating an annual budget, just monthly budgets.  I'm eager to try it out now, though. 

I think we're on target to spend $10k less than last year.  We didn't truly start to budget until August last year, so I can't totally trust our numbers from the first 7 months of 2012, but I know we spent at least a certain amount, so I'm using that as our baseline to improve upon.  So far this year, we have saved approximately 55% of our net income.

SnackDog

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #15 on: August 22, 2013, 04:29:26 PM »
You need a fourth button: What Budget?

KMMK

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #16 on: August 22, 2013, 05:16:13 PM »
You need a fourth button: What Budget?

Exactly. I've never had a budget. I always just spend less than I make. I'm aiming for around 50% saving rate and I'm doing that, so it's all good.

Inquizator

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #17 on: August 22, 2013, 06:14:52 PM »
I look at it a different way. Instead of giving myself a cap, I make sure I'm saving 60-80% of take-home pay.

I checked this morning and I'm 500 over "budget" (I don't really follow a strict budget I just have Mint with some arbitrary numbers thrown in so I can see trends in spending).

I fall in line with both of these. I just started reading MM at the end of last year, so we've been working on our spending this year, but we focus on savings rate more than budget. We decided our goal was > 50%. So far we're at 51.8%, so we're happy. However, based on the 'budget' I made to guide our spending (and that we put in Mint), we're $4k (!!) over where we should be so far. We're focusing harder this month to meet 'budget', but the real goal is the savings rate.

Cecil

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #18 on: August 22, 2013, 11:36:15 PM »
We're at $26.5k so far this year, and on track to come in just under $40k. If all goes according to plan it'll be our lowest-cost year since we started living together in 2006! :)

Ozstache

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #19 on: August 23, 2013, 04:24:40 AM »
Just shy of $27K spent as of today against an annual budget of $46K and a progressive target of 29K, so tracking nicely. ER long term COLAed income is conservatively estimated to be $55K, so plenty of safety margin there. BTW, 6 weeks today until my last day of work and the ER adventure begins!

Mike

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #20 on: August 23, 2013, 04:48:30 AM »
On track to spend around $24,000 this year - not bad since 1/5 of that went to car repairs + refi costs. 


NinetyFour

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #21 on: August 23, 2013, 06:57:11 AM »
Well, aside from mortgage payments (and extra payments), my spending (from 1/1/13 - today) has been $11,336.35.  (I am single, with no kids or pets.) I am pretty happy with that, considering that that includes $1100 of plumbing/heating repairs and $630 of car repairs.

adam

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #22 on: August 23, 2013, 11:02:48 AM »
If you take the average outgoing from Jan-July, I'm looking at a hair under $100,000 for the year.  That doesn't count savings or debt repayment.  That would be an additional ~$40,000.

Believe it or not, this is down from last year.

BlueMR2

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #23 on: August 23, 2013, 11:47:19 AM »
Some unexpected (and expected, but unexpectedly expensive) car repairs put a hurting on it.  However, I was able to compensate by shifting my leisure activity concentration towards the cheaper ones.

The wife's job situation is still an unknown (her job got outsourced to India).  She's got a few weeks of severance left, but hasn't found a job yet.  As long as she finds one she's almost guaranteed to make more than she used to (she used to work at a bank, and my joke about that is that the only reason banks have money is because they pay the employees so poorly).

i_am_the_slime

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #24 on: August 23, 2013, 01:32:27 PM »
I am about $2500 over budget so far with about $2000 in unplanned expenses - so $500 over 8 months or $60 per month - not too bad I guess. 

mm31

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #25 on: August 23, 2013, 08:22:02 PM »
I look at it a different way. Instead of giving myself a cap, I make sure I'm saving 60-80% of take-home pay. Then, I try to keep expenses low. I have not yet thought about my expenses in terms of sticking to an annual numerical goal.

Do you count annual spending to include the pre-tax items taken out of take-home pay or just what you spend out of the take-home pay?

Last year, I did think of it as saving, instead of expenses. I chose to think of expenses this year, because I like a concrete number. I do not count pre-tax contributions to accounts as part of my expenses. Sounds a little more complicated, and it's one of the reasons I don't like calculating savings rates: everyone has a different formula.

arebelspy

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Re: How is your annual spending so far?
« Reply #26 on: August 23, 2013, 08:32:48 PM »
Taxes killed my budget this April due to a few rehab/flips I did last year.

Ignoring that (i.e. saying "well the extra income caused that, so it's not a bad thing, and don't count it in your actual spending"... idk how legit that reasoning is), we're quite under.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2013, 08:35:37 PM by arebelspy »
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