2022 Spending Thus Far

 This post is mostly because I haven't done an expense report in a while. After the first year or 2, I think I just lost interest. Namely because my spending wasn't what needed to be controlled or managed. It was trying to increase my income! But I benefited so much from seeing other people's so I thought I'd do one for old times sake. 

Also I am stalling on doing the next draft of my document, so let's waste time on the blog!!

Expenses - $5,250

Home - As to be expected, home is my largest expense with more than 50% of expenses YTD. Someone again asked me about paying off my mortgage. With my mortgage rate < 3.5%, I'd rather put the money in the market. And my home costs so little that the margins on any calculations are so minimal that it makes any big moves seem like they can wait. I think when I originally was buying the house, my time horizon was 6 years where it would stop making sense to keep paying the FHA PMI on the house. So I have some time to figure it out. Not sure if I'll get mortgage rates this low again, but we shall see. 

Worth nothing, this also includes some home maintenance and supplies like furniture. The washer and dryer hasn't been added yet because it's on a card that I haven't paid off yet. 

Bills & Utilities - This is pretty standard and doesn't change much. Notably, my internet is going up by $10/mon eventhough I tried to call and get a new price. 

Food & Dining -  A little spendy with eating out but still overall within budget of ~$200/mon. 

Auto & Transport - this is mostly gas, apparently, I've filled up twice in March already, going where - who knows. There was also a 6-mon premium for car-insurance which also went up this year though nothing has changed. I finally got around to looking into the Safe Driver plug-in and found out my state is not eligible. 

Personal Care - I got my hair done for the low, low price of $265 with tip. This is when I thought I'd be actively dating for 3 months. That ship is coming back into the harbor. 

Misc - This is mostly my incidentals budget which is actually a line item in my budget spreadsheet but couldn't find the right category for it on the budget app. I don't want to put it under home because I'm loosely tracking Home as cost of home ownership. And these items are mostly for household goods that would be there even if I lived in a apartment - paper products, cleaning stuff, etc. 

Entertainment - mostly revolved around dating and socializing.

Gifts - I've been donating here and there.

Health & Fitness - there was a yoga class in there and I'm sure something else having to do with socializing. 

If you recall, last year (2021), I started with an aspirational spending target of $26k. Mind you, it's been that or around that since I started my FIRE journey and had yet to be reached. But then with COVID deciding to stay and me deciding to stay sheltered in place, I dared myself to a $15k spending target. And I did it! The lesson learned there was that being forced to spend less was not fun. 

So this year, I set a more reasonable budget of $30k which is what I was naturally spending in the year or two before my FIRE journey.

The other thing to keep in mind is my FIRE budget is based on a $20k annual spend. This a very lean budget but doable. 

So from a reasonable $30k budget, I am doing just fine. From a leanFIRE budget, I'm tracking behind. Oh well! 

So that's it folks. I've been checking the app to fight a little bit of boredom and some impatience. I mean if you count the equity in my house, I'm pretty much there, but who is counting. And if you count the available credit I have, I'm almost there. Oh well, not much else I can do now!