Expenses Comparison

[AlienRobotAnthropologist]

We often talk about saving rates and I understand their place, but they make it hard to compare how we're doing since we all have different incomes. So, let's try to compare annual expenses, with housing separated, so we can see how much progress we're making in attempting to become more frugal. Do not count income tax or property tax on a primary residence as an expense.

single, no dependents

$24500-$25000 total annual expenses
$9600 annual rent

~$15000 annual expenses without housing

[gravitysmiles]

Great topic!

Without rent my yearly expenses are about $12,000. That's my personal expenses, but I live with my significant other.

[RWD]

2 adults, 1 cat. We're at about $22k this year without housing (including ~$2-3k in estimated vehicle depreciation). Addititonal $5.5k/year in mortgage interest and $2.5k/year in real estate tax. So total expenses this year should be around $30k.

[GenXbiker]

$15,130 /yr total includes property tax, utils, entertainment, maintenance

$11,500 /yr if you exclude property tax

$10,700 /yr if you exclude property tax and home owners insurance

$6,900 /yr if you exclude prop tax, HOI, utilities, home maintenance

Single member household - paid off house.

[Michael in ABQ]

Two adults and five kids, zero debt.

Annual expenses are about $53,000

Rent is just under $15,000 per year for a four-bedroom house.

Annual expenses less housing is about $38,000.

On the plus side income taxes are essentially zero as the exemptions and tax credits from our kids pretty much wipe out our tax liability.

[Zikoris]

Couple, no kids.

$27,000 annual spending.
$9,400 rent, for a studio apartment.
= $17,600 non-home spending.

However, we also spend $8,000-$9,000 on travel. Axe that and it's well under $10,000.

[GenXbiker]

I've broken it down over the years and my bare hones expenses (everything I need to cover my current expenses outside fun stuff, repairs, etc..) run about $700/month or less.

If I exclude entertainment and maintenance from my total expenses, my bare bones are about ~$1050/mo, about $580 of that is for housing related costs including property taxes, utils.

[TheAnonOne]

We spend around $2,800 including everything except the actual mortgage payment of $600

So a bit under 36k if we pay the house off, which we intend to do before fire in 4ish years. We will hit our number before-hand though. It's only $60k and wouldn't derail FIRE much either way.

[zinethstache]

just under $1k planned this year for rent - camping fees (full time travelers)
12.7k living per person
3k discretionary per person

[Sailor Sam]

Single person household. I move a bunch, and my housing and living expenses can really vary by location. I averaged 2014-2016.

$40,500 annual spending
$14,300 rent

~$26,200 annual expenses without housing.


Man, that's a little depressing. I've been pretty consistent with finding lower cost housing in each city I've lived in, except for 2015. That year was a doozie. 18k in rent alone. Yipes!

[Raenia]

Extrapolating this year's data so far:

- ~14k total expenses (incl rent)
- ~7200 of that is rent payments
- ~6800 non-rent expenses (incl utilities, car, etc. but not incl taxes)

That is for single, no dependents, no pets, but splitting bills with my partner.

[dogboyslim]

Okay, proof I probably don't belong here:  Family of 5 (Me, DW, 3 kids in upper single digits to mid-teen + 1 dog)

Basic expenses - Medical insurance, property taxes, Property/Auto & Life/disability insurance, utilities/phone/internet - $20,100
Food/Clothing - $17,000
Giving - $9,000
Cars/Gas/Maint - $5,100
Kids Activities/Y membership - $10,000 (soccer/dance/swimming/piano/clarinet lessons/summer camps 2 each kid at 6-700 a pop...it adds up)
Travel - $8,000
Dog - $1,000 (includes grooming, vet/vaccinations & occasional boarding)
Other/one time purchases - $5,000

Total: $75,200

Now you know why my target for invested assets is $2.5 M  Yes, we could cut back, but we don't want to and we still save more than we spend.  If something happened to the income stream, many things would get reevaluated.

[TravelJunkyQC]

2 adults, no kids.

30k total. 16k mortgage, condo fees, utilities, taxes. 14k total living expenses for both (doesn't include partner's university fees, as they are just starting to come out of the joint account next month - we just switched to a one-pot deal this month). 18k total per year if we include his fees.

[TwoWorlds]

Total monthly spending $7,500/month.  I know that is high but we have a lot of educational expense and still save around $6,500/month.

Annual spending $90,000
Annual Saving $78,000

Working on getting that savings number higher but it will be awhile as we will have two kids in college soon.

Spending  $22,000 house payment   $30,000 college  $38,000 everything else.

[Roots&Wings]

One person with dog.

$21k total expenses last year including housing.
$9k expenses excluding housing.

Previously spent several years "homeless" doing the digital nomad/slow travel/housesitting thing, which was great for savings rate, but very happy now to have a home base with periodic travel.

[marielle]

From 09/2016 - 08/2017 for me and two cats.

$6460 on rent.

$15800 on everything else.

This will be a lot less in the coming year since I was commuting 36 miles each way to work most of this period on a car with premium gas.

I spent $6348 on car-related transportation expenses in this period. And no, I didn't buy a car. I actually drive a 14 year old car. I am ashamed.

[M5]

2 adults, 1 dog

$36,500 total spending.
$22,000 w/o mortgage.

Annual savings: $20,000

[FiguringItOut]

1 adult, 2 teens

Total expenses about $54,000
Annual rent $28,800
Expenses without rent about $25,200

[tarheeldan]

Single adult
$18,500/yr for everything
$8,500/yr excluding rent, includes $1,000 for travel

[Davnasty]

Total = $13,000
without rent = $8,500

Live with SO and split rent but I pay for all utilities and food.

If I lived alone rent would of course go up but other costs would go down (utilities, groceries, restaurants). And I might spend more on absurd projects like starting a mushroom farm in the closet if her stuff wasn't in there.

[BrandNewPapa]

2 Adults
1 Toddler
1 Cat

Mortgage                    $1,102.00
Property Tax            $349.54
Local Tax                    $51.46
Groceries/Dining    $450.00
Life Insurance            $190.00
Home/Auto Ins            $126.18
Medical                    $364.02
Dental                    $32.41
Vision                    $17.36
Legal                    $18.01
Phone                    $80.00
Electric                    $121.80
Gas                            $60.81
Water/Sewage/Trash    $50.00
Internet                    $35.00
Hulu/Netflix            $22.00
Auto (gas, car wash, etc)    $80.00
YMCA                    $66.67
Misc (home improvement, toileries, car repairs, etc)    $150.00

Monthly Total    $3,367.26
Yearly Total         $40,407.07

[moof]

Rough breakout:

Total spending for the last year:  $65k

House payments (P&I): $22k
Property Taxes: $5.5k
Total "everything else" spending: $37.5k

I have not gone to the effort to further granularize this.  I have some real fat in it, like a $3.5k Disneyland trip.  This year has had below average big ticket spending on things like cars and roofs, so it is realistically $5k optimistic.

It also does not account for the value of the employer provided health insurance, which will cost us a good ~$8k/year in retirement, which is a huge potential unknown at this point.

[soccerluvof4]

Family of 6
No house payments no cars but alot of select sport costs.

105-110k a year.

[Jrr85]

This is depressing:

2 adults, one infant, two toddlers, breakdown of expenses somewhat in the order of least ridiculous to most ridiculous:

Total expenses: ~$116k
 
Housing (P&I, taxes, insurance, repairs)~$28,000k (elevated because of taking care of deferred maintenance on a new home purchase; a little over $18k a year excluding those repairs, so hopefully closer to $20k a year normally)
Utilities (water, electricity, trash pickup) $2857
Daycare - $20,000
Charity - $6000
Car Insurance - $2160
Car service/repair - $1,904
Gas/fuel - $2669
Life Insurance - $1783.32 (about to go up as we're underinsured)
Internet - $660
Medical (excluding insurance premiums) - $2582
Babysitters - $582.60
Car Tags - $500
Dry Cleaning - $80


Groceries (including lots of diapers and formula and all household items) $6792
Gifts - $2,040
Cell Phone - $1935
Haircuts - $726.60
Travel - $5,000
Clothing - $2,282
Blow Money (that doesn't fit into other categories, many of which are obviously blow money; this includes some "small" trips that are essentially work related but on my dime) - $ 2,400
Social Clubs - $1,636.56
TV - $960
Restaurants - $5,535
kids Cloths/Supplies - $7,562 (this has some furniture in it for the kids; and a disturbing amount spent on kids birthday parties as well as a lot of non-recurring expenses for a new baby; this should drop more than in half without having to do anything just because of the non-recurring expenses)
Furnishings - $4,315 (This is basically new home furniture that should be closer to $0 or maybe a couple of hundred dollars per year in the future)
Alcohol - $1,431.24
Home cleaning - $1,587
Boat related stuff - $2,400


Lots of (hopefully) one time expenses and some ridiculous expenses that we are not strictly required to do for work but are semi-necessary for continued advancement and a lot of expenses that are caused by a combination of work + kids, but still pretty bad.

Hopefully will be under $100k next year with some of the one-time expenses behind us.  Just getting through daycare/childcare would bring that to aroun $80k.  The work related expenses from additional car/gas/social obligations would maybe bring it down maybe another $10k to $70k.   

Still a lot of fat to trim though.

[mizzourah2006]

2 adults, one toddler.

We are on pace to spend $53,200 this year.

~ $10k in childcare
~ $12.8k in PITI

I definitely wouldn't consider us the most frugal people out there, but we try to spend money on things we value. For example, I pay up for cable because I am big baseball fan and I am in a random dead zone for their broadcasts. Far enough away that sling carries another team with it's regional broadcast, but close enough that I am blacked out of all games. The only way I can get the games is VPN hacking or paying for cable, lol.

[katscratch]

Single, one dependent in college, 2 elderly pets.

From Sept 2016 through August 2017 $36885.64, not including the portion of insurance premiums paid by my employer.

PITI $12278, about half of which is taxes/insurance.

$5556.74 for transportation costs :/ My highest year on record, in spite of bicycle commuting about a quarter of the total timeframe.

[dreams_and_discoveries]

I'm at £20.5k all in, for one person and a cat.

Mortgage is £9.5k of that, so that leaves me £11k non mortgage expenses.

[Morning Glory]

Hello, we have 2 adults, one toddler, one fetus, one dog, one cat, several chickens

Our yearly spending is approximately 46,058 (1st 6 months of 2017 x2)
27458 non mortgage  (includes planned medical expenses for birth)
18600 mortgage (3948 is property tax and insurance)


Looks like we are in the middle of the range on this thread.

[Bracken_Joy]

2 adults, 1 dog.

We're on track this year to spend, all in, $56k.

$23.5k is housing costs.

So about $23k non-housing costs, which works out to ~$11.6k/person. That's actually way better than I thought it would be, since that includes a few thousand in pet and medical expenses for the year (~$4k).