Money-- and what we did with it in 2012

So you'd think with all the craziness of the last few months and the holiday hoopla, that it would be natural for us to take a side line to our spending and just forget it all and start fresh in the new year... right???

If your nodding along with me, your wrong. Even though it wasn't easy, we still kept track of our 2012 spending--- even if I didn't post about it at the time. It's not perfect, but for the first time ever I pretty much tracked our spending for an entire year.

Sure, there were moments when we ate out more than normal out of sheer exhaustion, and stress... but we tried to cut back in other areas to make up for it, or we figured out ways to bring in more money to try and balance everything out.

Looking back, we did pretty darn good. Money went into Retirement, things were cash flowed the entire year, and our emergency fund is more or less still intact. (I say more of less because we had an unexpected auto repair bill just shy of $700 come a few days before driving to Utah... and we paid for it with our checking account padding-- An extra $1,000.00 I keep in there so I never have to worry about bouncing a check waiting for pay day to come around-- and since that money isn't technically counted in our emergency fund total, the EF is intact, but my checking account will need to be replenished... so we will be pinching pennies in January & February to make up the difference.)     

But this is actually the first time ever that I've kept track of almost every dollar we have spent all year long. I'm just really pleased with myself right now. Normally I burn out and never keep track of the holidays and just crumble under the pressure... but i'm proud to say I was able to do it. Sure, our Holiday shopping budget isn't 100% accurate because my mom bought a lot of stuff "off us" for presents and I wasn't good about writing down on my spread sheet how much we got back--- but even an estimate is better than nothing!

So how did we do?

Here's our Money in October:

• Groceries/House Supplies: $287.32
• Eating Out: $50.42
• Gasoline: $68.00
• Car Repairs/Other:
• Giving: $252.00
• Prescriptions:
• Housing: $1,071.90
• Re-occurring Bills (Cell, Electricity, Internet): $222.57
• Gifts/birthdays/holidays: $59.25
• Other: $173.07
• Medical/Dental/Vision:
• Vacation:

Here's our Money in November:

• Groceries/House Supplies: 198.96
• Eating Out: $115.08
• Gasoline: $148.11
• Car Repairs/Other:
• Ins- 520.94
• Smog- 60.00
• Giving: $425
• Prescriptions: $45.00
• Insurance Prem for Jan $178.00
• Housing: $1,153.62 (dryer fix - $81.42)
• Re-occurring Bills (Cell, Electricity, Internet): $222.20
• Gifts/birthdays/holidays: $720 (estimate and includes decorations)
• Other: $44.15
• Medical/Dental/Vision:
• Vacation:

Here's our Money in December:

• Groceries/House Supplies: $238.56
• Eating Out: $86.54
• Gasoline: $143.35
• Car Repairs/Other: $684.24
• Giving: $159 (we forgot to cut checks before we left, so Jan will be much larger)
• Prescriptions:
• Housing: $1071.90
• Re-occurring Bills (Cell, Electricity, Internet): $222.66
• Gifts/birthdays/holidays: $105.82
• Other: $165.02
• Medical/Dental/Vision:
• Vacation:
• Gas: $142.17
• Tolls: $12
• Food/going out: $97.03
• Train: $14.00
• Souvenirs/Shopping: $56.17

AND ALL of 2012:

• Retirement:
• Roth IRA: $5,000.00
• 401A: $120.00
• Pension: $1,630.98
• Groceries/Household Supplies: $2.572.14
• Eating Out: $1,281.05
• Cars
• Gasoline: $1,753.13
• Car Repairs/Smog/Registration/INS: $2,300.19
• Giving: $2,661.29
• Prescriptions: $158.00
• Housing: $16,503.75 (including new windows) 
• Re-occurring Bills
• Cell: $1,689.89
• Electricity: $539.64
• Internet: $431.11
• Gifts/Birthdays/Holidays: $1,377.42
• Medical/Dental/Vision: $2,285.30 ($1,773.35 deducted from paycheck)
• Vacation: $1,287.18
• Utah
• $85.52 Shopping
• $168.88 Gasoline / Tolls / Transportation
• $119.98 Food/Eating Out
• Disneyland: $142.19 (Parking, Food, & Shopping)
• Utah/Great Basin National Park
• Gasoline: $194.05
• Tolls: $12.00
• Souvenirs: $48.27
• Campsite: $18.00
• Cave Tours: $16.00
• Food/Going Out: $136.92
• Discovery Science Center: $24.00
• Utah (Christmas/New years)
• Gas: $142.17
• Tolls: $12
• Food/going out: $97.03
• Train: $14.00
• Souvenirs/Shopping: $56.17
• Any Other Spending (Clothes, things, etc): $1,859.79