Andy Hough

One of my goals for 2013 was to save 50% of my income.  I managed to save $14058.60 and earned $29711.86 for   a savings rate of 47.31%.  Although, I failed to meet my goal I’m happy with the savings rate and I’m not going to consider this goal a failure.  I was unemployed for most of 3 months during the year and only employed part-time for two more months of the year.  If I had obtained full-time employment for another month of the year I’m sure I would have met the 50% savings goal.  My income of just under $30k is also the best income year I’ve had.  I know it isn’t that great of an income for most people, but it seemed like a lot to me.  If I’d had this kind of income in earlier years I like to think I’d have saved more then as well.

I’ll be working two jobs to start this year so I have a chance to have an even better income this year.  Making more money is not a priority for me this year though.  I’m planning to take quite a bit of time off.  It is still possible that this will be an even better money making year since I might change my mind depending on what opportunities are available.  I won’t be setting a savings goal this year, but I do plan to save a large percentage of my income.

My other financial goal for 2013 was to keep my monthly expenses under $1274 a month.  I met that goal by ending up with an average monthly expense of $1164.81.  That goal may have been a little too easy.  I did also have a stretch goal of keeping my expenses under $1000 a month which I obviously didn’t make.   My goal for 2014 will be to keep my monthly expense average under $1000.   I am going to need some dental work this year which might make this goal unrealistic.  If that ends up being the case I’ll set a new monthly expense goal.

If you are curious as to how my expenses broke down I’ll share a few more numbers with you.  My largest expense was rent which added up to $4390 for the year.  There isn’t much I can currently do to reduce that expense.  My next largest expense was transportation.  I spent $1590.53 on gas and $1805 on car maintenance, auto insurance, and other car expenses.  I spent way too much on gas in 2013.  I plan to reduce that this year.  I currently have a longish commute which means I’ll be off to a bad start on gas spending though.  Once the commute job is over I’ll have to cut back on other driving.  I spent $1373.42 on health insurance and fitness center dues.  My health insurance is slightly cheaper this year and I no longer have the fitness center membership so this category should come down quite a bit this year.

I spent $457.96 on groceries and $985.32 on dining out last year.  That total will probably remain about the same this year, but I’d like to switch groceries to being the main expense rather than dining out.  I spent $674.22 on movies, $797.45 on travel, and $674.22 on other entertainment.  I didn’t always break out travel so there is a little bit of travel expense included in the other entertainment category.  I saved quite a bit of money on travel by using my Barclay Arrival rewards card.  I just signed up for the Capital One Venture card for a $500 bonus towards travel this year.  I’ll probably cut back some on the movie expense this year.  After going to the movies almost every week last year, my girlfriend and I are starting to get a little burned out on watching movies.

I spent $321.72 on my phone for the year.  I spent $137.82 for seven months of electricity.  I spent $112 for five months of internet, including an installation fee.  I spent $348.94 on miscellaneous and $65.91 on gifts.  I’m thinking some gifts were probably included in the miscellaneous category.  I also spent $74.48 on medical costs other than health insurance.  That is how I spent most of my money.  Other than the transportation category, I think I did pretty well.  I’ll try to do even better in 2014.