DD’s Monthly Expenses – December 2009

Happy New Year!

I don’t know about you, but I have been having a difficult time getting back into rhythm after the holidays.  Hopefully I can get back on track soon.  Until then here is my family’s spending report for last month.

• $840.39 – Mortgage
• $759.20 – Health Insurance
• $637.27 – Christmas Presents
• $472.44 – Groceries
• $450.00 – Preschool
• $223.42 – Household Misc
• $211.99 – flip video camera
• $155.83 – Gas
• $152.66 – Dog
• $150.00 – Student Loan
• $148.35 – Boots
• $146.64 – Electricity
• $145.79 – Bed
• $103.65 – Phone & Internet
• $70.00 – Donations
• $66.78 – Clothes
• $65.20 – B-Day Gifts
• $63.67 – Garage Door Repair
• $55.00 – Babysitting
• $53.32 – Utilities (Water, Sewer, Garbage)
• $53.00 – Yoga classes
• $50.98 – Dinning Out
• $44.52 – Dance class (2 months)
• $25.00 – Club membership
• $14.00 – Haircut
• $13.86 – i-tunes
• $13.45 – Kids care

For a grand total of $5161.41! We have absolutely no business spending this much.  When I told Mrs DD the damage, her response was,”Wow.”

Biggest Budget Busters:

1. $637.27 – Christmas Presents – If you combine this total with what we spent last month ($152.56) We almost spent $800 on Christmas gifts this year. Last year we only spent $600. A big difference is that we spent a lot on our kids this year. It seemed like there was always one more thing to get.  Another reason why this seems high is that we bought presents for 25 people this year.  We need to shave this number down next year. We were able to cut out a few, but they were replaced with others.
2. $223.42 – Household Misc – I should’ve kept track, but well over half of this was for Christmas decorations.  We hit up the after Christmas 50% off sale, so I guess that means that we’ll be set up for next year.
3. $211.99 – flip video camera – My wife doesn’t make very many impulse purchases, so I won’t jump down her throat when she does.  Gwyneth Paltrow blogged about these cameras, and it made my wife realize that we don’t video tape our kids enough.  We did use it for the holidays, hopefully we’ll use it all year long.
4. $148.35 – Boots – Mrs DD takes another hit.  But this is South Dakota and you need a good pair of boots for winter.  She’s been complaining about hers for years so she went out and got herself a pair.  I didn’t even notice until the we went back to the store and the sales clerk asked her how her boots were treating her.
5. $145.79 – Bed – We decided it was time for our 2-year old son to get out of the crib. So a quick trip to the furniture store(twin mattress), then the Hardware store (plywood board instead of box spring), and one last trip to Target (Race Car sheets) made this rite of passage complete.

Biggest Budget Breakthroughs:

1. $146.64 – Electricity – Since we spent over 5k last month I don’t think there are any budget breakthroughs, but somehow our electricity came in at a reasonable amount. This will change next month because thanks to the Christmas blizzard we are now living in an icebox(had a record low of -30 degrees two days ago), but I will enjoy the lower bills while they last (won’t be long).

~Let’s do the Time Warp~

Last December we only spent $3903.52, so clearly the wheels fell off this year.  Sure last year we didn’t pay for our health insurance, but quite a few other categories were higher last year (Daycare, Groceries, Electricity).  We just plain spent a lot this year.

In fact in 2009 we spent $54,659.91 ($4554.99/month).  I’d like to see this number drop closer to $50,000 next year, so we need to reduce our spending to the $4200/month range.  It’s going to be difficult, especially seeing as how we spent $4300 or less in only 5 of the 12 months in 2009. But I think it’s doable.

It’s fortuitous timing that The Simple Dollar is running a series on how to trim the family budget. Although in our case the best advice would probably be to stop buying so much stuff.

Until next time,

-DD