I always track & review our spending at the end of the year, to bring awareness to what we're spending, make adjustments & go deeper into categories we are surprised by.
Similar to previous years, our spend is dominated by our top four categories. All in all, this makes sense, as we try hard to spend aligned with our values, track our spending, & minimize spend for things we don't think we need. That said, we are in an expensive season!
Reminder: we paid off our house, so that's why you don't see a mortgage as one of our top spend categories! This is also capturing only our post paycheck spending (e.g. doesn't count for pre paycheck tax deductions, 401k savings, charity & the like.) It's probably a bit confusing, but since that money is automatically removed, we pretend like it doesn't exist. Our paychecks (as well as bonus & stock compensation) are what's left over to spend.
Top four spend categories include:
- Taxes. This includes federal, state, & very, very expensive property taxes. This is our #1 budget category, & double the size of our next biggest category. A few thoughts. Our property taxes are not changeable while we live in this house. Our income taxes are highly variable due to our compensation plan at work. This makes it near impossible to have the right amount deducted throughout the year.
- Travel. This was a year with LOTS of travel spending. No regrets. :-) Second biggest budget category.
- Boys. This was our biggest increase in year on year spending. We had: SAT prep, Sam's executive functioning tutoring (ramped up at the end of last year), college counseling, college application fees, club soccer & tennis, school sports, other random miscellany. We expect this line item to drop quite a bit in 2024, as Sam is done with college counseling, SAT prep, & club sports. We will be paying for his first year of college out of his 529 account.
- Boys college investment accounts. We intentionally maxed these out, to prep for the years ahead.
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