2013 Financial Summary - How Did We Spend Our Money

While there are still a few days left in 2013, we're closing the books & calling it a year. Below is a quick look at our top spending categories. No surprise that our mortgages (both) are the top two categories, followed closely by our rent in San Francisco (and, that was just for four months!).

Here's a more detailed breakout. In case you're wondering what "other" is, it's every category with less than $1,500 of spending for the year:

Percentage of total spend for the year (errors due to rounding):

• Seattle house mortgage - 21%
• Vacation house mortgage - 14%
• Rent in San Francisco - 12%
• Taxes - 8% (these are taxes we owed outside of what is deducted from our paycheck). Our actual tax rate is much, much, much, MUCH higher :-))
• Childcare - 6%
• Other - 5%
• Travel - 4%
• Groceries - 4%
• House - 4%
• Seattle house utilities - 4%
• Car - 3%
• Cleaning - 2%
• Insurance - 2%
• Gas - 2%
• Dining out - 2%
• Boys college - 2%
• Gifts - 1%
• Refinance - 1%
• Vacation house utilities - 1%
• Boys lessons - 1%

A few notes:

1. Contributions to our retirement accounts are not included. We max out our 401Ks each year.
2. Charitable contributions are deducted in our checks, so also not included.
3. Health care - same as above.
4. Categories that were combined into other (i.e. less than $1500 of yearly spend):
1. Adult clothing
2. Kids clothing
3. Dry cleaning
4. Personal (aka hair cuts for everyone, plus the occasional pedicure for me)
5. Health (race fees, etc)
6. Entertainment
7. Boys birthdays
8. Miscellaneous boys spending
9. Liquor
10. San Francisco utilities
5. Our refinance was the cost associated with buying our Seattle house down from a jumbo loan.

I'm really surprised by how low (percentage-wise) most of our expenses are. It's very clear where we're spending our money!

I need to dive deeper into the income side, & provide the complete picture. I'll also have a net worth update as it gets closer to January 1st.

What about you? Do you analyze your spending like this? What do you learn about your own spending habits? I find it fascinating to understand where our money goes over the course of the year.