Where Does All My Money Go

[Tiger]

With the way of the world now, and being hit this year with likely taking home about 30-40% less money I did a deep dive to figure out where my money has all gone. I actually hoping too for any cost cutting tips anybody has and any other hacks. I kept this at percentages so it isn't a true dollar value, and this is just 2020 so for example something like travel will be down, online shopping up. This is also just expenses. Does this seem normal to people?

(Editing the numbers out, this thread has run its course and just removing the data off here, thank you all)

Any advice people have on saving costs?

[nik-]

How many months is this averaged over? How many people in your household? How much will a normal yearly household maintenance cost work out to? Is this percentage of take home or gross?

[Cecil Terwilliger]

I have no tips other than to say making a budget is a massive step. Do you follow it? That’s the second massive step.

[Jason14h]

Where is the VLT budget ? With alcohol so low I assume you are not a Flames fan !

Joking aside nothing jumps out other then groceries. But I assume you already look for best deals on food , etc

[you&me]

Well, I'll be honest and admit that I find the percentages difficult to wrap my head around, so I've gone ahead and assumed you're spending $100k per year and multiplied all of the figures by 1,000

I don't see any glaring issues. It's hard to nitpick someone's spending without knowing more about them and their priorities and interests, family dynamic, etc.

I mean, personally, I can't fathom spending that much money on books, but I also know that anyone who does, does so because they prioritize reading.

Fast food is low-hanging fruit, but again, without knowing your lifestyle, maybe that's not such an outsized expense.

Paying interest on debt is an oft-decried no-no, but we don't know what the debt is for, rates, etc. In any case, that would be a good one to tackle.

Like I said, it's pretty difficult to give any meaningful advice without more context.

[flames_fan_down_under]

So if you’re looking for little bits to save I would say eat out less, get your books from the library because that seems like a ton of money to spend on books, what is “entertainment” if you have a category for books, and restaurants and travel?

[GGG]

I’ll have to look at My own numbers but your house and groceries relative to your mortgage look quite high. Also Car payments as a function of mortgage. It might be that you have chosen to live in a smaller house or have a smaller mortgage relative to other expenses then I do and that is throwing my perception out of whack.

As for places to save.

I think Car Payments is a choice between 0,1 or 2 payments. That is probably the easiest place to reduce cost. You can drive for 25 cents per km or 80 cents per km and get the same level of reliability and get the same places.

Drive less - depending on vehicular chosen you will save at least 15 cents per km you don’t drive. So reducing 100k / week saves $1500 easily. Depends on how much you drive but cutting this number by 20% should be relatively easy

Your house number is high so this is likely things you are choosing to do and not have to do so if I was looking to cut expenses I would limit it only to necessary rather than cosmetic or function upgrades.

Restaurants and Fast food consume 4% of your budget. You could look to cut here.

I’d probably look at building your spending up against what you have available as opposed to looking to cut from your current lifestyle.

[Weitz]

Hard to give too much advice without knowing amounts IMO.

Like 16% on groceries seems obscenely high. But without knowing an amount it could be reasonable.

[PepsiFree]

I am a strict budgeter, and a less strict but still dedicated budget follower.

For the sake of the discussion, I'll provide recommendations based on the idea that you take home roughly $6500 per month which makes your mortgage around $1300 a month, which would be reasonable for a small family living in a small condo (which I know you aren't because you built a deck, but just act like you are for budgeting purposes).

- Food: Right now you're spending $1300 on food (all combined), which is $325 per person per month for 4 people, or $430 for 3 people. $200 is what the average Canadian spends on groceries (per person, per month) so you should bring your overall food costs down to about $250 per person, per month.

- Entertainment is $135 which isn't bad, but you can probably lower that by half. If you're making more, that means you're spending more than $135, and that means you should cut even more.

- Books is unreasonable. Use the library, it's free. You could cut that item almost entirely.

Everything else seems mostly fine, honestly. But, let's say you're making twice that amount. Then I would look at cutting the things mentioned above by a lot, and also reducing your online shopping and personal grooming.

Basically, you can save $350 a month fairly easily if your budget is $6500. But I think it's probably a lot higher, so you can probably save a lot more. You're basically blowing 5-6% of your monthly budget. Not a lot when you're not making a lot, but hundreds of dollars regardless (and a number that only goes up the more you make).

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Weitz

Hard to give too much advice without knowing amounts IMO.

Like 16% on groceries seems obscenely high. But without knowing an amount it could be reasonable.

That's why I asked how many people in the household. The grocery bill being 83% of your mortgage payment seems really high to me.

[Jacks]

Hard to say without knowing the actual numbers and your situation. Taking a rough guess at the percentages I'm guessing you're about $5000/month. Groceries could be really high or not depending on how many people you are feeding, if it's one person you can save a ton there. House costs seem high but depends on how much the new deck impacted that number can't imagine you had a deck put in for $800 so it must be financed?

[GirlySports]

Grocceies at 16 and restaurants and food at 4% seems high. If there are alot of grocceries there should be less eating out? And what's entertainment at 2% is that netflix, movies, hockey tickets and concerts?


Pets is also a danger area. Not that 2% is bad for a great pet but that is non-static and out of your control will fluctuate and increase in the future as they get sick and need medical care.

[Tiger]

Originally Posted by nik-

How many months is this averaged over? How many people in your household? How much will a normal yearly household maintenance cost work out to? Is this percentage of take home or gross?

deleted

[PepsiFree]

Also, instead of looking at your whole budget, separate it into required expense vs. optional expense. That will show you what you have to pay (unless you make big changes like selling a car) vs. what you choose to pay. I've bolded the optional expenses (and put food into optional, even though about 50% is probably required):

(Edited)

This means you're spending 61.35% on fixed expenses and 39.65% on optional expenses. The food you need to live is probably anywhere from 10-15% of that, so you're looking at about 25-30% of your spending you can make reductions to. You should be saving anywhere from 5-10% of that, so cut at least that amount.

[Hockeyguy15]

You guys thinking there are 4 of them are hilarious. There is no daycare cost, coffee is too low, and there is a travel expense.

Rookies.

[Tiger]

Originally Posted by you&me

Well, I'll be honest and admit that I find the percentages difficult to wrap my head around, so I've gone ahead and assumed you're spending $100k per year and multiplied all of the figures by 1,000

I don't see any glaring issues. It's hard to nitpick someone's spending without knowing more about them and their priorities and interests, family dynamic, etc.

I mean, personally, I can't fathom spending that much money on books, but I also know that anyone who does, does so because they prioritize reading.

Fast food is low-hanging fruit, but again, without knowing your lifestyle, maybe that's not such an outsized expense.

Paying interest on debt is an oft-decried no-no, but we don't know what the debt is for, rates, etc. In any case, that would be a good one to tackle.

Like I said, it's pretty difficult to give any meaningful advice without more context.

Yeah for books, the wife loves to read and we buy our kid any books she wants to encourage her, it is high this year with library closures for awhile though.

Fast food yeah is low hanging, but also isnt too high, not going to save too much cutting it out, and would maybe slightly increase grocery in return, though not as much.

Debt on interest goes into investments and business loans so at least the interest is a write off.

[OMG!WTF!]

There may be some savings within your mortgage and interest debt. Rates are crazy low right now, like 1.6% fixed for 5 years. Depending on where you are in the life of your mortgage term and what your interest rate is, you may be able to renegotiate and possible take more money out to pay off your other higher interest debt. IF you could access even more mortgage credit you could pay off your car loans which might be a good buy down of higher rate loans. . -- Also you should have some for savings in the mix. Obviously not happening if you're stretched thin but someday if you can put a couple bucks away it would be good. Anything you put in an rrsp would take down your tax rate. Mucking around with your tax return can be a source of free money too. I'm not sure if your return is factored in to all of this but "optimizing" your tax return with a few more 70k haircuts could provide a few extra bucks.



No coffees. No gum.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Tiger

This is percentages of total expenses. Not of total money. This is 2020 so 9 month. 3 in the house. For the house it seems pretty average as there is usually around 1 major reno that isvabout 2/3 of the costs and 1/3 minor stuff

Unless you're only making $4000 between the 3 of you, your food costs are outrageous. I'd cut that down immediately.

[Tiger]

Originally Posted by flames_fan_down_under

So if you’re looking for little bits to save I would say eat out less, get your books from the library because that seems like a ton of money to spend on books, what is “entertainment” if you have a category for books, and restaurants and travel?

Entertainment involve everything from netflix and spotify to some sports stuff like golf, movies in January/February etc

[Mr.Coffee]

Do you have a wife?