3/11/2014

My Money, My Choices - Level 1, Activity 1

Activity: Complete a Spending Analysis

I've been tracking our spending for a long time, so this task was pretty easy for me to do.  Here was our year-over-year comparison for the last four years, and I've added 2014's average so far.


Groceries has been on the rise and as already described eating out and alcohol took a dip in 2011 but then have been rising ever since. Entertainment is on the rise as is vehicle maintenance - though with having two vehicles again, I'm not surprised with the dip and the return to 2010 levels. We're down a bit now, and so that's a good start to the year.

Home Maintenance is way down now that we're not in 'brand new house' mode, we want to buy everything to make it pretty' mode.  In to 2014 and Gas has indeed gone down - now that we're out of the worst of winter, I hope it will go down a tad more because we won't be warming vehicles up in the morning any longer. We're on a great start with groceries (thought an Anonymous commenter from yesterday has me thinking that Jordan and I have an opportunity to talk and really make some goals around this).  Eating out is creeping up, as is Alcohol.

We're on track for Entertainment, Pets, Medical...and I'm actually fairly happy with all of the remaining categories so far.

What is evident - and I know, I know I've said this before -  is that our weekly budget of $300 just isn't cutting it...need to have a think about our spending strategy...and perhaps our non-spending strategy.  I cant tell you that we haven't changed anything yet...but I'm hoping that through Gail's process, we might just get closer to working this one out.

Check out the My Money, My Choices programme by clicking here.

Related Posts:

  • My Money, My Choices - Level 2, Activity 1Activity: Align Cash Flow, with Bills The first activity in level two is to align our cash flow, with our bills.  I went to one of Gail's older blog posts on the subject to frame the activity a bit.  Here's what … Read More
  • My Money, My Choices - Level 1, Activity 4The fourth, and final, activity in level 1 is to create a networth statement. This was a pretty quick activity for me - but I did make a change to my regular networth statement (and why I missed posting for March 1st). &nbs… Read More
  • My Money, My Choices - Level 1, Activity 3Activity 3 is to make a Balanced budget....balanced. I already have a budget set up (see the 2014 budget tab), but I wanted to go through this process to have the opportunity to really look at everything.  So, I de… Read More
  • My Money, My Choices - Level 1, Activity 1Activity: Complete a Spending Analysis I've been tracking our spending for a long time, so this task was pretty easy for me to do.  Here was our year-over-year comparison for the last four years, and I've added 2014's a… Read More
  • My Money, My Choices - Level 1, Activity 2Activity: Create a Debt Repayment Plan This activity really aligns with what Jordan and I were talking about over the last few weeks - increase mortgage payment, pay of LOC, or pay off escape.  Well...let's look at it… Read More

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