December Money Review

So here I am three days into 2020 and looking at the numbers from 2019. I have been tracking groceries all year long, both food and common household items (laundry detergent, dish soap, cleaners, toilet paper). I ran figures last night and am both pleased and aghast at what I discovered about our 2019 spending.

Let's start with the easy stuff: what did Warren and I spend on groceries in December? To my amusement (well, kind of), we spent $174.27 for food/household items, just a smidgen under the $175.00 I had been using as a benchmark all year long. $12.16 of that was household. Some of those food dollars were spent on baking supplies for biscotti, so coming in this low surprises me. When I add the December dollars to our yearly totals, we finished the year at $2231.04, or a monthly average of $185.92. In essence, we shot over the monthly goal by $11.00 for the year. Last year we came in at a monthly average of $191.00, so we actually reduced our spending. Bonus points!

Of the total dollars spent, only $124.97 was spent on household goods. Seriously? That is about 5% of our overall expenses. Dang.

The figure that caused me to wince (Wince? How about "react violently" instead?) was our eating out for 2019. In 2018 we spent just under $885.00 for the year "eating out," a phrase which covers everything from grabbing a coffee with a friend to dinner between a rehearsal and concert when we are out of town to "hey, let's go out," which includes getting take out as well. (The latter is the least likely to occur, incidentally.) 2019 total? $1391.61, or about $110.00 a month.

Ouch. That hurts.

Now, when I dive deeper into that figure, the numbers reveal other things. Rehearsal and concert-related meals and snacks? About $170.00 of that. Conferences (less reimbursement, in my case, of my per diems from the Court)? An eye-watering $466.00, more or less. Okay, there were multiple conferences this year, but still, I was staggered. Mayo trips cost us, even with packing some of our meals and the ever bountiful and ever cheap Kwik Trip deli, about $195.00 (four trips in 2019, so about $50.00 a trip). And our vacation to Portland cost another $93.00. (All of these figures are rounded up.) Take those figures out and we spent about $397.00 for the year on eating out, or about $33.00 a month.

Wow. Well, the first and most obvious statement I will make is that we will not have five conferences this year. Warren will have a couple, but my Court-related conferences should come in at zero. That alone should make a dent in the figures.

I have not yet thought through 2020, either on the eating out or the grocery front. We are about to leave for (wait for it) Mayo, so there will be some eating out costs right out of the gate. On the other hand, I just bought two massive containers of laundry detergent for $1.05 total, including tax, through a combination of the sales price and Bonus Bucks (or whatever they are called) from CVS. (I earn those extra dollars through my pharmacy purchases, not by shopping at CVS.) So the first few days of 2020 hold both challenges (the trip) and wins (the detergent) right out of the gate.

I'll be thinking about our spending habits while we are on the road, and will share some of those thoughts when I get back. Warren and I are delving into more serious retirement discussions, both between ourselves and with others. I'll be sharing some of that too as we examine 2020.

So here's to 2020.