personal living expenses
William R. Watt
These are my personal living expenses. I hope the information will
encourage people to keep track of living expenses. I also hope it
will show how little you need to live on if you try. For both
personal well being and environmental well being, a frugal
lifestyle has it's benefits.
Expense Meals Home Home Tran-
Year Total Food Out Fixed Other Clothes sport R&R Gifts Rx Other
---- ------- ---- ----- ----- ----- ------- ----- ----- ----- ---- -----
1976 7734 1290 2781 1222 216 867 138 248 162 603
1977 10006 1420 3184 243 324 1956 317 839 39 1684
1978 10398 901 81 4171 1340 359 1144 650 454 86 1211
1979 10640 764 206 880 4899 343 1048 847 297 684 671
1980 9592 721 210 4735 467 98 1630 647 230 223 631
1981 12091 653 268 5225 1080 222 1654 1423 210 204 1145
1982 12895 659 185 5445 376 167 2538 2340 196 209 780
1983 8861 610 110 2552 778 161 1276 1471 173 139 1091
1984 7434 681 110 2605 202 278 1155 1490 108 33 795
1985 6731 638 66 2500 217 145 1468 1243 78 19 391
1986 8403 724 58 2783 986 116 1972 778 62 321 656
1987 7505 831 65 2598 439 124 1259 1028 50 467 644
1988 8826 856 44 2809 946 316 1866 1254 27 194 524
1989 8477 834 61 2973 1065 160 1821 745 151 49 614
1990 8011 916 19 3300 171 131 1760 511 72 571 449
1991 5888 885 5 3280 235 56 1120 267 44 14
1992 7597 714 1 3361 723 89 1919 277 129 73 326
1993 7088 743 21 3215 189 107 1812 322 274 111 247
1994 7164 687 3331 839 87 1047 1051 25 110
1995 6643 624 2 4029 88 77 961 570 163 118 11
1996 5551 546 3437 60 43 819 314 199 61 74
1997 7566 616 46 3485 1830 62 730 567 59 9 52
1998 7862 607 9 3620 743 76 1660 703 198 215 6
1999 6835 614 1 3590 136 35 1427 699 43 260
2000 5946 633 2 3462 147 35 598 174 366 185 398
2001 5367 573 6 3381 192 25 875 172 147 50 6
2002 5216 588 4 3454 262 20 570 276 22 19 1
2003 5506 492 3748 272 38 611 199 109 37 2
2004 5604 296 3822 256 46 783 107 65 9 2
notes:
1. income taxes excluded
2. purchase of cars & boat excluded, bought with savings
3. 1976-1977 expenses for two in apartment, for one in house after
4. 1976-1990 "other" includes life insurance
5. 1978, 1980-1982 mortgage payments in "home fixed"
6. 1979 mortgage payments in "home other"
7. 1979-1984 club memberships, associations, social obligations
8. 1991 left workforce
The format above is also used for monthly expenses, one line per
day. At the beginning of each year 13 blank photocopies are made,
one per month and one for the year's summary (one line per month).
In 1976-1979 a budget book was purchased each year but they kept
changing the columns.
After the end of each year the total is broken down into daily and
monthly averages and into column percents for inspection. The
following example is for 2004.
Expense Meals Home Home Tran-
Year Total Food Out Fixed Other Clothes sport R&R Gifts Rx Other
---- ------- ---- ----- ----- ----- ------- ----- ----- ----- ---- -----
2004 5604
Monthly 467 25 318 21 4 65 9 5 1
Daily 15.4 .8 10.5 .7 .13 2.1 .3 .2 .02
Percent 100 5.3 68 4.6 0.8 14 1.9 1.2 0.2
How much is enough? That's a question posed in every book I've
read on retirement planning. It looks like $6,000 a year after tax
is enough for me. In Ontario for 2004 the first $8012 of income,
indexed to inflation, is not taxed. At that income you get about
$850 in GST, property tax and other rebates so you only need $5150
pretax income to have $6,000 to live on. All the examples in the
retirement planning books assume I need a lot more.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
William R Watt National Capital FreeNet Ottawa's free community network
homepage: www.ncf.ca/~ag384/top.htm
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Tracey
"William R. Watt" <ag...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
news:cufp4m$8fc$1...@theodyn.ncf.ca...
>
> These are my personal living expenses. > Expense Meals Home
Home Tran-
> Year Total Food Out Fixed Other Clothes sport R&R Gifts Rx Other
> ---- ------- ---- ----- ----- ----- ------- ----- ----- ----- ---- -----
> 2004 5604 296 3822 256 46 783 107 65 9 2
You spent less than $300 for food for the entire year??? Please tell us
what you eat? (Or do you live with Mom and eat her food?)
Andy
> These are my personal living expenses. I hope the information will
> encourage people to keep track of living expenses. I also hope it
> will show how little you need to live on if you try. For both
> personal well being and environmental well being, a frugal
> lifestyle has it's benefits.
>
> Expense Meals Home Home Tran-
> Year Total Food Out Fixed Other Clothes sport R&R Gifts Rx
Other
> ---- ------- ---- ----- ----- ----- ------- ----- ----- ----- ----
-----
> 2003 5506 492 3748 272 38 611 199 109 37
2
> 2004 5604 296 3822 256 46 783 107 65 9
2
I am seconding Tracy's question. How on earth do you manage to survive
only spending $296 for food in a year? Thats less than a dollar a day!
I guess you could do that if you only ate beans and rice, day in and
day out. Is that what you are doing?
Also, whats going on with transport? Do you have car? Insurance?
Andy
Serendipity
Oh, I missed that but seeing all the figures, I just tuned out and went
to the next post ;) I would really like to know how the OP spent less
than $300 for food for a year. Heck, he spent more on sports than food?
The climate in Ottawa dictates a shorter growing season so the OP
can't be growing all their own and preserving. And you know what is
missing here are a breakdown of utility costs. A longer cold season
means higher utility bills not only for heating but also for lighting.
Dennis
wrote:
>Tracey wrote:
>
>> "William R. Watt" <ag...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
>> news:cufp4m$8fc$1...@theodyn.ncf.ca...
>>
>>>These are my personal living expenses. > Expense Meals Home
>>
>> Home Tran-
>>
>>> Year Total Food Out Fixed Other Clothes sport R&R Gifts Rx Other
>>> ---- ------- ---- ----- ----- ----- ------- ----- ----- ----- ---- -----
>>> 2003 5506 492 3748 272 38 611 199 109 37 2
>>> 2004 5604 296 3822 256 46 783 107 65 9 2
>>
>>
>> You spent less than $300 for food for the entire year??? Please tell us
>> what you eat? (Or do you live with Mom and eat her food?)
>>
>>
>Oh, I missed that but seeing all the figures, I just tuned out and went
>to the next post ;) I would really like to know how the OP spent less
>than $300 for food for a year. Heck, he spent more on sports than food?
I suspect that the confusion is because of bad formatting on the
table. I'd guess that the $296 is "Food Out", i.e., restaurant meals,
and that the next column is $3822 for "Home Fixed", i.e., the grocery
budget. And that's "Tran-sport", i.e., transportation not sports.
'Course, applying a little common sense takes all the fun out of it.
:-)
Dennis (evil)
--
"There is a fine line between participation and mockery" - Wally
carol...@raines.com
>
> I am seconding Tracy's question. How on earth do you manage to
survive
> only spending $296 for food in a year? Thats less than a dollar a
day!
> I guess you could do that if you only ate beans and rice, day in and
> day out. Is that what you are doing?
>
> Also, whats going on with transport? Do you have car? Insurance?
>
> Andy
Before we all go down to the bus station and buy a one-way ticket to
Canada, keep in mind the value of the Canadian dollar back in 1976, and
up to a few years ago, was a bit over half the US dollar. So his
figures should be multiplied by the exchange rate of the year in
question, as well as the inflation factor for the US dollar of that
year.
Still, he gets almost free property tax, and free health insurance.
AND doesn't have the embarrassment of having Bush as his country's
inept leader. Hmmm.... might be worth the bus fare.....
C.C.
Marc VanHeyningen
>>to the next post ;) I would really like to know how the OP spent less
>>than $300 for food for a year. Heck, he spent more on sports than food?
>
>I suspect that the confusion is because of bad formatting on the
>table. I'd guess that the $296 is "Food Out", i.e., restaurant meals,
>and that the next column is $3822 for "Home Fixed", i.e., the grocery
>budget.
I believe the $296 is home food, and the blank column is meals out
(presumably this guy never ate in a restaurant even once the whole
year?) I'd guess the "home fixed" means the costs of his home (e.g.
property taxes, maintenance, insurance, maybe utilities...)
pjha...@gmail.com
purchase is a one-way ticket.
Bill 2
"Dennis" <dg...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:90op019ua53o9okch...@4ax.com...
Use a fixed width font like courier new and it all makes sense.
bic...@charter.net
If you're so embarassed just remember Valentines Day is just around the
corner. You can figure that out yourself. I know Dennis (evil) will get
it.
Serendipity
I am very frugal when it comes to food and I don't care for the Fast
Food joints at all. Still, a whole year without eating out seems odd to me.
carol...@raines.com
Chicago mobsters. I'm sorry if I offended anyone by my political
reference. Do you have rules about that being too off-topic? I do
apologize if this is so. I meant it as humor --- should have put in a
smiley, eh? So I'll go back to lurking and keep my keyboard quiet.
I've found a whole bunch of useful advice and information in this
newsgroup (and a whole bunch of the opposite sort).
C.
Dennis
Yep, looks like I was way off. That's what I get for posting a hasty
guess instead of spending the time to check it out more thoroughly.
William R. Watt
Food: I worked most of the diet it out on a home made nutrition
spreadsheet so it's cheap but nutritious. The spreadsheet is on my webiste
(see below) under "Food". I take food and water with me when I go out
walking, sailing, paddling, cycling, driving, etc. and never buy out. I
buy bulk at a cash and carry wholesaler. A 50 lb bag of sugar does for
making wine, jam, and jelly, baking and everything else for almost a year.
A 50 lb bag of rolled oats lasts almost a year as well. I make bread in a
bread machine, buying flour on sale and cheap bulk yeast from a health
food store. I costed out a loaf of home baked whole wheat bread at 38
cents compared to $1.49 at the supermarket. Then I went out and bought the
bread machine, factory warranty refurbished at half price.
House: I pay about $2,000 in property tax, $850 in natural gas, and so
forth. I do my own renovations and repairs sometimes with used stuff from
a building material recycle store. I collect tools and things a community
garage sales and rummage sales. (The past two years I've gone over the
$1.2 billion city budget at the public library and found a million in
savings here and there for we taxpayers.)
Car: I own a car I bought new in 1989. I do my own maintenance and repairs
(see tools above). I no longer carry collicions or theft insurance and pay
$350 a year (low use, no accidents, non-smoker, non-drinker). I don;t use
teh car much because I live behind a shopping mall on a regional feeder
road lines with shopping malls. I can walk to 5 supermarkets, 2 green
grocers, 6 pharmacies, some banks, post office, and public library. I have
2 bicycles.
Work: No longer in the workforce. This provides the time to do stuff for
myself. Labour costs in North America are astronomical. You save a lot of
money just by not hiring other people to do stuff for you. I also have
time to go to all the second hand sales. TIP: Buy two of everything so
when one breaks you have a backuyp until you can find a replacement (for
the backup) at a second hand sale.
That should be enough for an idea of how it's done.
Anybody can if they try. Be creative. It's fun. :)
m...@privacy.net
> I take food and water with me when I go out
>walking, sailing, paddling, cycling, driving, etc.
This is a good idea above.
Can you give some examples of what food items you
carry? And what you carry them in? Carry them in a
daypack?
Rod Speed
<m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:dih111h72ca4b39g5...@4ax.com...
>> I take food and water with me when I go out
>> walking, sailing, paddling, cycling, driving, etc.
> This is a good idea above.
Nope, most are too obese already.
> Can you give some examples of what food items you carry?
> And what you carry them in? Carry them in a daypack?
I can go all day between breakfast and dinner
in the evening with nothing but tap water.
bic...@charter.net
Manage your welfare check better and you won't have to.
Charles
When we are going out for a day trip with the car we pack a small six
pack cooler. It is big enough to hold a couple of drinks and 3 or 4
sandwiches.
Charles
George Grapman
I do the same thing at a ballgame. Sometimes I bring a few of those
small boxes of apple juice. Not only is my food better and cheaper than
ballpark food I don't miss an inning waiting on line.
--
To reply via e-mail please delete 1 c from paccbell
Maren Purves
> A 50 lb bag of sugar does for
> making wine, jam, and jelly, baking and everything else for almost a year.
> A 50 lb bag of rolled oats lasts almost a year as well.
It'll last that long here if I put it in the freezer. The lowest
relative humidity humidity yesterday was above 80% - and it
was cold, high temp. was 73F.
May work where you are, we store sugar and salt in the fridge
and buy oats roughly weekly.
Maren
Sue Larkin
<m.pu...@jach.hawaii.edu> wrote:
Yep! What Maren said. Most everything, once opened, goes into the
fridge or freezer...cereal, rice, bread, pasta; any type of grain,
really...coffee, sugar, spices, herbs, you name it! That's just kinda
mandatory for a tropical climate.
Hilo only got up to 73 yesterday? I think Oahu hit 80, +/- a degree.
Aloha...Sue
Rose
our "water" bottles around with us. We only had a certain amount of
time for breaks and such so it was just so much more convenient to be
able to carry it around with us.
I also remember one fishing trip I took with my family where we had
the food ready beforehand but most notably we had some of those "dry
ice" packets that we'd add to a case of sodas.
Rose
http://members.aol.com/Roseb44170/home.html
"How in the heck did I ever get talked into this?"
Rod Speed
"Rose" <Roseb...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:42113f50...@News.Individual.NET...
Much more frugal to just use tap water.
Maren Purves
We buy herbs in bulk (very small bulk <g>) and don't put them in the
fridge. Pasta yes, bread no. Coffee either comes in a can or goes
into a can or jar. Rice is in one of these big plastic containers
where you can fit 20lb rice in. (Wondering whether most mainlanders
have ever seen one of those)
> Hilo only got up to 73 yesterday? I think Oahu hit 80, +/- a degree.
is what the weather report said ...
The thermometer in the living room didn't go above 21C (= 70F).
We got the front yesterday that you had Friday or Saturday.
Cold and rainy.
They said the airport got almost 4" rain, up by us it was only
about 1 1/3". Looked bad enough that I didn't leave the house
(or the roof around the house. Our lanais have roofs).
Aloha,
Maren
(is much nicer today though)
Sue Larkin
<m.pu...@jach.hawaii.edu> wrote:
[...]
> > Hilo only got up to 73 yesterday? I think Oahu hit 80, +/- a degree.
>
> is what the weather report said ...
>
> The thermometer in the living room didn't go above 21C (= 70F).
> We got the front yesterday that you had Friday or Saturday.
> Cold and rainy.
> They said the airport got almost 4" rain, up by us it was only
> about 1 1/3". Looked bad enough that I didn't leave the house
> (or the roof around the house. Our lanais have roofs).
We got nailed, mainly Friday night. Hundred year old keawe trees
uprooted, heavy rain, howling wind so loud I couldn't hear the tv.
Then, there was no tv because Makaha lost power for 4-5 hours. Nuthin'
to do but go to bed. It was a very frugal, chilly evening!
Aloha...Sue
Gregory Morrow
<Charles> wrote:
I was reading on the Studebaker newsgroup that some 1950 Studebaker models
had a "cooler" in the back seat area that held ice. It was disguised as an
armrest and it had a drain so the water could drain out under the car...
Who knew?
--
Best
Greg
Dennis
<gregorymorrowEMERGENCY...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>I was reading on the Studebaker newsgroup that some 1950 Studebaker models
>had a "cooler" in the back seat area that held ice. It was disguised as an
>armrest and it had a drain so the water could drain out under the car...
>
>Who knew?
Not that surpirsing -- some of the old Studes looked like
refrigerators.
Dan Birchall
> William R. Watt wrote:
> > A 50 lb bag of sugar does for
> > making wine, jam, and jelly, baking and everything else for almost a year.
> > A 50 lb bag of rolled oats lasts almost a year as well.
>
> It'll last that long here if I put it in the freezer. The lowest
> relative humidity humidity yesterday was above 80% - and it
> was cold, high temp. was 73F.
But Sunday night it went down to 2% humidity, and 30F, at work... ;)
-Dan (knows where to store food now! so it's a bit inconvenient...)
--
Dan Birchall, Hilo HI - http://hilom.multiply.com/ - images, words, technology
Maren Purves
> m.pu...@jach.hawaii.edu (Maren Purves) wrote:
>
>> William R. Watt wrote:
>>
>>> A 50 lb bag of sugar does for
>>>making wine, jam, and jelly, baking and everything else for almost a year.
>>>A 50 lb bag of rolled oats lasts almost a year as well.
>>
>> It'll last that long here if I put it in the freezer. The lowest
>> relative humidity humidity yesterday was above 80% - and it
>> was cold, high temp. was 73F.
>
> But Sunday night it went down to 2% humidity, and 30F, at work... ;)
and Maisha won't complain if she has to wait 3-4 hours if stuff
runs out?
(I'd call that more than "a bit" inconvenient)
William R. Watt
There was a mistake. Last year's food bill was understated by about 50%.
Some people had asked about food cost. The daily food bill was $1.41, not 80
cents. I've corrected the file on the webiste. Sorry about that.
William R. Watt (ag...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA) writes:
> These are my personal living expenses. I hope the information will
> encourage people to keep track of living expenses. I also hope it
> will show how little you need to live on if you try. For both
> personal well being and environmental well being, a frugal
> lifestyle has it's benefits.
>
> Expense Meals Home Home Tran-
> Year Total Food Out Fixed Other Clothes sport R&R Gifts Rx Other
> ---- ------- ---- ----- ----- ----- ------- ----- ----- ----- ---- -----
<...>
> 2004 5604 517 3822 256 46 783 107 65 9 2
<...>
> Expense Meals Home Home Tran-
> Year Total Food Out Fixed Other Clothes sport R&R Gifts Rx Other
> ---- ------- ---- ----- ----- ----- ------- ----- ----- ----- ---- -----
> 2004 5604
> Monthly 467 43 318 21 4 65 9 5 1
> Daily 15.4 1.4 10.5 .7 .13 2.1 .3 .2 .02
> Percent 100 9.2 68 4.6 0.8 14 1.9 1.2 0.2