Financial Data

My imprint was to track every penny.  Until I got a regular ample salary, I looked at expenses big and petty closely.  Eventually I could count on a paycheck that exceeded what I desired to spend, putting much of it first into bank accounts, then later into growing investments.  While always frugal, I avoided serious budgeting.  Minor financial reviews came at tax time.  By the time kids needed big tuition, we could pay a considerable fraction with loans for them that would not saddle them forever.

As I got to retirement, hiring a financial advisor in anticipation, the loose data came my way periodically.  Guidance on investments and tax savings, for sure.  Guidance on budgeting or spending never.  Once here, I allocated the Financial category of my Semi-Annual projects to tracking spending, for which I've now completed my third years.  On or about the 17th of each month I log what got charged to each of three credit card statements and my checking account onto an Excel Spreadsheet.  

The figures for 2022 got tabulated.  I spend a fortune on taxes, about 40% of my total expenditures, though some of it was large one-time payments for converting tax deferred IRA accounts to Roth Accounts.  About 12% of my expenses went to contributions, lots of them, nearly all under $100.  Enough to raise a hand in support of most anyone's worthy effort, not enough to make any of them viable.  Health insurance took a big chunk.  While I allocated a lot to entertainment, most of it was not really my amusement.  The bulk was a monthly Comcast Bill assigned to that category, which I think of as cable TV but is really internet and landline telephone access with a certain fraction enabling television.  Seems like more than it really is.

We did not travel a lot, one fairly big trip, though not an exotic one.  Some short car trips with a few nights each at hotels and eating out.  Yet even with this limited indulgence, the total approximated the totals that I spent at the supermarkets and for consumer goods.  The gas stations got about $1000, probably more since when I purchased gas during a road trip, I assigned that gas to travel rather than fuel.  Home maintenance took about 8%.  Having utilities, trash pickup, somebody other than me doing the lawn, some landscaping, pest control, the plumbers.  Hard to tell what would be done by a Homeowner's Association assessment if we lived in one of those sprawls that we encountered on a trip to Florida, but it would be a big assessment.  But I definitely like living where I do even if its upkeep generates a considerable annual expense.  My car payments added up, now about one-third done.  And insuring everything, particularly our health, generated some notable fees.

With 2022 now tabulated, the only changes I would pursue are probably less on taxes, maybe more on travel.  The monthly Excel entries have now come off my Semi-Annual initiatives, though like monthly donations, or gardening, other former targeted tasks that have come off the list, they have become habitual and continue.  New spreadsheet for the next entry.  New folder to keep the paper data.  But no big changes to my standard of living now that I know what it costs to live this reasonably comfortably way.