Yes, this is it. I am ready for 2008!!!!

But this is the first year I had 2 full years' data in Quicken. How exciting. I wanted to do a comparison. & with the push of a button... Wala!

I like technology.



Auto - gas was up $600. Not bad considering prices and we probably drove way more this year.

Insurance and licenses down a bit

Service up $1k. Thanks new car. I can't say we ever spent near as much with very old cars. Bah. No wonder people with new cars assume old cars cost more to maintain. LOL.

Last year we spent $400 to replace a windshield on an old car and we spent $300 on maintenance and oil changes and such.

This year with the major expensive upgrade to much newer 35k mile car (from my 150k mile,never needed a repair, Saturn) we spent almost $1k to repair my electrical system and $500 for new tires. $200 for the regular maintenance.

Wasn't exactly in the budget. Just not used to these kind of stupid repairs. Windows not working, locks not working. Etc.

Charity - we were more charitable-like. We tend to give more time than cash as a whole. But we gave a lot more to charity in lieu of gifts this year.

Clothing - tried to be more mindful, though I think I paid for much my clothing out of allowance this year. Doubt I spent much less on clothing. I actually shopped less second hand this year. Target is just SO cheap for the kids. Wasn't worth the trip to the second hand stores to pay the same prices.

Childcare - We put LM in 2 1/2 days a week. Upped the costs considerably as the mornings costs much more hourly than tacking on the afternoons. We actually moved BM down to 2 full days from 3 1/2 days, to lower costs (funny how that works out). Just 7 more months of 2??? Phew!!!!

Christmas - about same as last year.

Diapers - I put those with groceries. These were just the cloth diaper service. BM dropped out mid-year and we ended the service a couple of months back. Was well worth it for 2. A little pricey for one who rarely used the cloth anymore.

Dining out - spent $430 less. Not bad!!!

Education - we did karate and a gymboree type class through the community center. We dropped these due to time changes and sending LM to preschool instead. I took on an aerobics class, but I only have to pay when I show. So our expenses here went down (but preschool way up).

Entertainment - we pretty much spent the same - I just changed my classifications this year. This year only includes our Blockbuster online rentals at $19/month.

Gifts Given - we didn't give less gifts at all this year. not at all. Just shopped a lot smarter!!! (P.S. a relative said I bought too much only though I only spent $15 each on her kids. Reatail full price looked like $50 each and she thought I bought too much. Isn't that funny!!! Bought brand new too. Sales and coupons...) I used to penny pinch for ourselves and splurge on everyone else. I have since learned that is silly!

Groceries are down on average $110/month. All dh. don't ask me. We eat the same. I really notice little difference to our diet or eating habits. We have been clipping more coupons (just a few) and just planning meals better is all. Dh makes a batch of salsa almost every week now with leftover vegetables. The chips are always on sale dirt cheap if you know when to buy. We switched to bulking up on non-perishables on sale. IT was hard at first because it grew our monthly expense in the beginning, (we had a month or 2 of $600 bills) but with time it seriously has brought it down. Big time. Now we spend $400-$450/month. I think we could go a long ways to bring this down too. shop produce more locally (farms, farmers' markets) and the like, is one idea. I just told dh to pick up spices in the ethnic food section. What an idea.

To be fair, one kid dropped out of diapers, and the other dropped out of formula, and now we buy milk in bulk/sale since both kids are now on 2%. Those helped a lot too.

I leave this $500 in our budget because the kids will grow. I do the same with gas in our budget. Just to leave wiggle room for growing prices and known factors.

Household - is gardener and stuff for the house. Last year we had pest control, but the cheap place quit. They only came 3-4 times a year and had a gurantee (so would come more if need be). But they quit and we didn't see anything reasonable. Dh decided to self spray. We haven't yet, but really should before the spring. The wasps are terrible. We really don't have any other pests though and generally thought pest control was overkill (most our neighbors pay $60/month!!!!! We took the gardener instead!).

This year our big pest expense was mouse traps. (Didn't catch any - neighbors' cat did. Phew).

Housing - when first got Quicken think I put a couple of mortgage payments there. Ignore.

ID Theft - signed up for monitoring since my ID was stolen. May drop it. Considering it. Was invaluable for a few months though while I cleaned things up.

Insurance - Disability and home insurance went down $400. Likewise I added $100 premium to our life insurance. Upped it since we had the wiggle room.

Interest expense - was car loan. Only consumer interest I paid in my life. Was only 3% though and paid off in April.

Kids - just an old classification. Now use clothes and misc. categories.

Medical - only went up $500 though are premiums went through the roof. For one, we only went to the dentist once in 2007. (summer. We went december before and january after. We do go every 6 months, just how it worked out. Guess more like 7 months.

Misc. - I budget $150/month for misc. Just the extras and to buy some wiggle room. & I don't like to over-categorize everything. This one is hard to compare as I have changed some of my classifications with time using the software. We probably spent around the same. This year included a $1200 HDTV and stand. So not bad! Oh yes, this year we included gym membership. I also allocated about $100/month when we had extra money to take kids to museums and zoos and such. So I think we spent this money much better this year. I know where most of it went. Last year we had a lot more junk, stupid purchases. This year included a beard timmer, rock climbing, birthday ballons for the kids, passport, new phone, movie theatre visits, etc. Just stuff like that that I am not going to categorize since we spend so little on. (I should breakout the gym membership in Quicken though - just haven't yet).



Mortgage - some reason paid 13 payments last year? So skewed the comparison.

Moving expenses - was storage and prep for house sale last year. We never moved and didn't try this year.

PErsonal care - this is just haircuts. We started going to the beauty school for the kids year-end. $4 haircuts for BM and $2 for LM. Can't beat that. I get 2 haircuts a year and dh goes every so often - mostly him. I am not into makeup and all that foofy stuff. So we don't spend much on that stuff. I put shampoo and deoderant and the like in the grocery budget. I just don't liek a lot of categories. IT's all stuff we "need."

Professional dues - these are actually my poilitcal contributions. My boss reimburses the rest of my dues. & these are voluntary. I Felt more generous this year.

Recreation - just moved to miscellaneous this year.

Subscriptions - we subscribe to our cooking mags (which help our grocery bill) and the paper and a few other real cheap things. Mostly all I did this year was switch to paying the paper once a year. No idea why not before. Saved a bit.

Tax - Increase in tax is mostly payroll taxes due to raise.

Utilities - Well dh did drop HBO late last year. But we upped our cell phone - upgraded to more ours from our ancient, ancient package. Our water switched to metered last month and dropped significantly. Our local cable company dropped our bill $20/month for no particular reason in October as well. we get more channels now. Eat that Comcast. We also started budget billing so less bills the last few months.

Vacation - 2006 we went to Hawaii and Vegas. This year we went to Japan, Florida, Vegas and a cruise. I also included a trip to Monterey and San Francisco in the "vacation" category this year. Both years much was paid for by relatives. So the $600 increase isn't bad for all we did. (For Japan and Florida all we paid for was treating to dinner and some international phone calls).

Allowances - I don't see them in this report. We both spent around $1k. We budgeted $50/month plus gifts, so was well within budget.

Dh bought some movies and games and a PS3.

I spent mine on clothes and replacing my purse, backpack, suitcase and the like.

But this is perfect for us. Dh thinks I spend way too much on clothes and I can't stand that he keeps a movie collection. I have never bought a movie in my life! Never would. So we allowance it and do our own thing with no nagging.

We'll stick with $50/month for 2008. IT worked well. IT doesn't mean we can never spend more, it's just the nag-free money. We tend to agree on all our other purchases. & without limits, these are the areas we overspend. So it was good for us.

This is the first year we had an allowance since we were first married in 2000. Don't ask me why. This should have been the first thing we did when we went down to 1 income. Doh.

Income (wage) was around $75k. So expenses were about equal. We made our net worth progress with investments, profit sharing, extras (Challenge), etc.

I am hoping the gap between total expenses and my wage grows a little more next year though. But that is one thing we do as a 1-income family. Scrounge up the extras where we can. More time to do so.

I think mostly our wants/needs are in balance too so that is the nice thing. We have always found it rather easy to save raises. We haven't done so well with that the past 5 years on 1 income, but we are re-committing to that. Easiest way to save money. We don't need to up our lifestyle, it seems. We have it pretty good I think.

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All in all we spent a little less than 2006 (barely). Maybe breakeven once you include our allowances (not showing up). But I got a $4k raise and we raised $10k challenge money. So it was a good year!

I think we spent our money much smarter. Less money for stupid stuff, more for more important things. Yay!

Here's to doing even better in 2008.