2017 Budget - a comparison to 2016

Okay, 2017 is almost upon us! I've reviewed a few budget categories, but thought it would be more helpful to go line by line & see which categories are going up (luckily, just a few), and which ones are going down. (Retirement savings, charitable donations, & healthcare are all handled before we get our checks. The smallish "health" line item you see is actually for things like 5K races, OTC medicine, and my family relay. Not actual health care costs.)

I budget in two different ways - monthly budget expenses (standard expenses that occur every month), and yearly expenses. Things we know we will spend on over the course of the year, but where the spend varies greatly month to month.

Here's our 2017 vs 2016 budget spending for our monthly expenses. The Seattle rental typically is  *exactly* break even (I'll get the final numbers at tax time), but we've been making additional principal payments on one of our loans, and this includes a small buffer in the event something needs to be repaired for that house.

The change in the vacation mortgage is from our refinance earlier in the year. As you can see, we've made a few small tweaks, but the only really significant change was from our mortgage refinance. The rest are small adjustments to better reflect our actual spending. And, of course, my 2017 toiletry challenge! My goal is to spend nothing (use up our stockpile, or make do) for as long as I can in the year!

Monthly Categories	2016	2017	Difference
Childcare	1200	1000	-200
Cleaning	180	150	-30
Dining Out	150	125	-25
Toiletries	10		-10
Entertainment	25	20	-5
Gas	150	150	0
Groceries	550	625	75
Insurance	115	125	10
Rent	5200	5200	0
Utilities	450	450	0
Liquor	30	30	0
Vacation mortgage	2310	1425	-885
Seattle rental	1000	1000	0
			-1070

And, here are our yearly budget categories. A few thoughts on this one. The boys activities actually cost more, so I bumped up to better reflect actual spend. And, sadly, taxes cost WAY more, even with increases on all salaries to withhold more. We do plan to spend less on travel, as we have a bunch of flight credits to use up as well as some hotel points. I'm hoping to spend less on summer camps as well. Once you minus out the tax difference, we are shaving $3,800 off of our yearly budget categories.

I get asked about the "boys - all" category sometimes. I find it helpful to have a budget item for things like: field trips, miscellaneous activities that don't fall into anything else, school supplies, etc. Some example expenses for this year would be: fundraising tshirts, yearbooks, a coach's gift & pizza party for the end of the season, parts for Nick's bike, a new helmet for Sam, etc. . . 

Personal is for hair cuts (all four), the occasional massage for me (helps with the aches & pains of lupus), and a once a quarter or so pedicure.

Yearly Budget Items	2016	2017	Difference
Travel	7000	3000	-4000
Boys activities	1500	2000	500
House	1500	1500	0
Taxes	5000	20000	15000
Personal	1000	1000	0
Auto	1500	1500	0
Boys college	2000	2000	0
Charity	500	500	0
Clothes (everyone)	1800	1800	0
Christmas	2000	2000	0
Boys - All	1000	1200	200
Gifts	1000	1000	0
Health	600	600	0
Summer Camps	1500	1000	-500
			11200
			-3800

And, for a nice historical view (again, removing the tax variance, because we grossly miscalculated when setting our budgets in 2015 & 2016), here's our budgets over the past few years:

2015 - $186,320
2016 - $164,340
2017 - $147,770

I'm very happy to see us driving down our expenses each year, as we grow our income. 2017 will be quite an interesting year for us, with potential housing & job changes on the horizon. Because of that, it's difficult to build a full 2017 budget, but this is based on existing expenses & income. I'll readjust once we have firmed up our next steps.

How about you? Are you making any big or small changes to your budget in 2017? Any areas you want to track more closely than others? Please share!