2024 Spend Breakout

 I always find it useful to compare our spend year on year, as well as by category. Unfortunately, I don't have our full 2023 spend data (the data was on my work laptop & I no longer have access to it), but I do know we spent significantly less than we did in 2023, which is always a positive. 

A few notes about the below, which is a categorization of our total net spend. It doesn't include: savings, standard tax withholding, charitable giving or retirement, as all of that is automatically deducted. Our house is paid off. 

• 1.97% - gas
• 2.36% - dining out
• 3.14% - addition to Nick's 529
• 3.30% - insurance (house & cars)
• 3.48% - utilities
• 4.05% - groceries
• 4.32% - house
• 5.64% - cars 
• 5.87% - everything not categorized in another way on this list
• 7.94% - boys (minus college spending)
• 13.69% - 2 quarters of college
• 15.93% - travel
• 27.31% - taxes (property taxes plus additional money to the IRS, as we didn't have enough withheld)
  

Based on this and our expected household changes in 2025, we will be updating our budget. It's always very useful to see how well we did against our planned budget. Do you track your finances? Any big learnings this year? 

Frugal Friday

 This is a bit of an abbreviated edition, as we were largely traveling. As I'm sure you can guess, taking four teens skiing (plus two adults) is nowhere near frugal! But, we had an amazing time, & no regrets at all (other than the rain for the first half of the trip). Unfortunately, we haven't figured out how to control the weather yet. ;-) 

Saving on things we buy

• I was able to apply a "Guest of Honor" award to the second hotel room (1st half of our stay), which ensured all of us could eat breakfast for free during our stay. Breakfast was a large buffet & very nice, and pricey. It would have been ~$250/day otherwise! Insane pricing, but I won't complain about free. 
• Bought lunch at Costco (drive up) & In & Out (drive home), both of which were so much cheaper than on mountain food. 

Earning money

• I was able to cash out some survey response money (Prolific), and made $25
• I sold Sam's old bookshelf on FB, for $45.
• I gifted M's coworker a United upgrade (a business upgrade from Tokyo to Newark, which is extremely pricey, if you are paying out of pocket) & he gave us a $150 gift card as a thank you. 

Avoiding spending

• M & I ate a free dinner on NYE, courtesy of the hotel we were staying at. It was nothing to write home about, but neither of us were particularly hungry, as we were both coming down with a head cold. 

Eating what we have

• Brought tons of snacks for the teen skiers, and they ate plenty in the room, on the drive, on the  slopes, etc.
• Made everyone a big breakfast this morning, before they took off for: bowling, soccer practice & the rock climbing gym. 
• Managed to eat almost everything, despite being on two trips. Just a tiny bit of food waste (an apple, a pear & a handful of tater tots.) 
• This should be under the category of "drinking" what we have, but M & I shared wine at one of our ski dinners, and didn't finish the bottle. We brought it back to our room, and kept it in the fridge. We had a toast before our NYE dinner, with the remainder of the wine. 

For others

• Gave away a fancy NYE goodie bag from the party we attended. 
• I was drying ski clothes at the hotel laundry & gave away both change & laundry pods for other guests who needed them. 
• Dropped off Persian goodies (from my MIL) as a New Years gift for my neighbor, who cooks a lot of Persian food. 

What about you? Any wins to share?

2025 Goals

2024 was quite a ride! Who knows what 2025 will bring, but likely our empty nester era, hopefully a new job for me, and potentially a large remodel on our house. I'm still thinking about what goals I want to set for the year ahead, but here's where I'm at so far:

Financial:

• Continue to pay for both boys college expenses
• Get a new job
• Earn $3000 in side hustle
• Stay on top of food waste by doing monthly pantry or freezer challenges
• Once I get a new job, figure out a revised savings target. This one is a bit on hold for specifics until I have that information. 

Family:

• Both boys successfully in college
• Optimize points, perks & miles for travel. Track value over the year.
• Plan & have two fantastic & (reasonably) on budget trips to Europe. Spain in March, Italy in October. 
• Figure out/plan for remodel
• Enjoy Nick's senior year

Fitness:

• Lose 10 lbs
• Strength train 100 days
• No S diet 150 days
• Meditate 100 times
• Try a new workout

Personal:

• Language lessons 100 times
• Declutter 500 items from the house
• Take a college class
• Get together with friends
• Get better at pickleball
• Try something new & uncomfortable
• Say yes to more adventures

Have you started thinking about your 2025 goals? What are your priorities that you want to focus on?

2024 Goals Recap

 Happy New Years!

Can you believe 2024 is over?! The year definitely had a lot of surprises, but I made reasonable progress against my goals for the year. Here's how I did.

Financial:

• Max Nick's 529 account - yes, although we parked most of it in a CD. Done. 
• Max our 401ks (standard contribution for me + M's catch up contribution) - done!
• Save the remainder of Sam's college expenses - done, thanks to my severance.
• Save another $100k in after tax investments - done, thanks to my severance.
• Earn $3,000 in side hustle - crushed this, with $7164 in side hustles this year. (I'll do a separate post about where this all came from.) 
• Set monthly pantry or freezer challenges - eh, I did fine on this. Some months were better than others, but generally, everything in our freezer/pantry is stuff we're using regularly, with a few exceptions. 

Family:

• Help Sam finalize his decision & transition to college - done!
• Get Nick through the college application process + SATs & AP tests for both boys - done!
• Optimize our points, perks, miles, to keep travel costs in check while enjoying travel - yes, and we saved a lot (over $15k)!
• Plan one fun activity per month with the boys - this was really hit or miss, but we went on three ski trips, went to a dude ranch & had a lot of fun with my family. We also went camping in Big Sur, which was awesome. 

Fitness:

• Stretch 2x/week - I stretch at my fitness class at least 3-4x/week. I wasn't very specific about this goal (and, should have been, in hindsight), but I'm more flexible than I was last year. 
• Lose weight - ended the year at .25 lbs over my weight on the first of January. Wow. 
• Run 2 half marathons + Hood to Coast - I ran a half marathon, but lingering tendonitis hasn't allowed me to run regularly
• Continue to strength train regularly - definite win on this. I've gained a lot of muscle mass & have increased my strength training tremendously
• Follow the No S Diet - Nope. I've had a streak of good days or even weeks but then fell apart. 

Personal:

• Get together with friends 1x/month - for sure, and way more than that, with my more flexible schedule.
• Practice Farsi 100 times- I swapped this to Spanish & achieved this goal
• Declutter 500 items from the house - I got rid of 735 items!
• Learn to play pickle ball - took pickle ball classes with M, he & I played a few times, I played with my mom, and have played with a friend. I'll take this as a win, although I'm not very good yet. 

What about you? How did you do with your 2024 goals?