My expenses in 2014 were a little higher than in 2013. I spent a total of $15,775.66 in 2014 compared to $13977.72 in 2013. The increase in expenses was mostly due to a little over $1000 of dental work and increased travel expenses. Dental expenses will be even higher this year since I’m getting dental implants. It will be well worth the expense to finally have a full mouth of teeth again. I’ll probably travel more this year so I doubt that will go down. Using credit card bonuses and other tricks I think I’ll get a lot of value for the money I do spend on travel.
Here is a breakdown of my main expense categories for 2014. I spent $4800 on housing. This goes to my GF to help with her mortgage payment on the house we both live in. I should probably start paying here more since I’m paying less than half. I spent $321.72 for phone bills. I spent $675.72 on health insurance. I did receive a subsidy on that so that expense could go up or down once I file my tax return. I spent $954 on my student loan. I’m planning on paying a lot more towards my student loan this year.
I spent $1630.53 on car maintenance, registration, and licensing. I spent $222.25 on car insurance and $1074.28 on gas. That is a lot, especially when you consider that I sold my car in September and had hardly any car expenses the last three months of the year. I probably will buy a car later this year. I’m hoping it won’t require much maintenance.
I spent just over $1600 on dental work and medicine. I’ll probably spend more than that this year. I have $2200 set aside in my HSA to cover these expenses. I’m hoping that will be enough and that my medical/dental expense will be much lower after this year.
I spent $807.34 on groceries and $892.81 on meals out. This year I want to reduce the total overall and groceries should make up more of the total than meals out.
I spent $508.24 on movies and $617.92 on other entertainment. I’m guessing that total will stay about the same.
I would like to reduce my expenses down to about $12,000 for this year which will be a stretch. Not having a car should save me some money and I think I should be able to cut down the travel total a little. I might have to make my goal $12,000 for the year not counting my dental expenses and buying a car.
My 2014 expenses of $15,775.66 allowed me to take two trips to Las Vegas, a 5 day trip to an all-inclusive resort in Cancun, a two-week hiking trip in PA/NJ, and some shorter in state trips. There were also almost weekly movie theater excursions and lots of restaurant meals. Even with a relatively low expense total like this it is possible to have a lot of fun.
You should be proud of how little you spent – congratulations! I am especially impressed by the amount of travel you managed to do. I’m thinking about playing the credit card game this year to earn some free travel. Waiting to pay off more debt to get my credit score higher, although it probably is already high enough to open new accounts.
Have you heard of Deal Flicks? I bought a Groupon for the site. They offer discounted movie tickets, but only at certain theaters.
Playing the credit card game can definitely get you a lot of free travel. There are lots of people who get a lot more free travel than me from churning credit cards and manufacturing spend.
I have heard of Deal Flicks, but haven’t used it yet since the theater we usually go to isn’t part of it and they don’t usually have deals on the weekend. I might take advantage of one of their deals eventually when I have days off during the week.