On the right there is a breakdown of some of the larger categories into sub-categories. Unlike some bloggers I can't say what we spend on food, or clothes etc. I just know how much we spend at different sorts of retail outlets.
One of the biggest changes from last year is the reduction in cash spending from 13% to 3.5% as we started to use credit and debit cards more to track our spending better. Restaurants is up as former cash spending was converted to spending using cards. Other major changes are:
- An increase in health spending from 7% to 16% due mainly to costs of pregnancy/childbirth.
- A major increase in housing spending from 16% to 26% as we undertook renovation work and paid more mortgage interest due to having less money in our offset account.
- A major reduction in travel from 14% to 3% as we only went on a trip to Sydney this year instead of to Europe and Japan.
Income was up strongly on the previous year, mainly due to futures trading. As a result, taxes were also up strongly to over AUD 100k. OTOH total spending and saving also rose strongly. Note that "current saving" here is much higher than my usual definition of saving, which only includes saving from salaries and similar income. Here, total income includes investment income and so saving is correspondingly higher.
2 comments:
Hi mOOm,
first of all many thanks for sharing the data!
A lot of "budgeting" comes from desire to increase amount of savings and understand how much do you need in retirement.
As for the former you are doing great, the latter is to early to do with two kids in the house. 48% net savings is impressive achievement, albeit the income is substantial too.
Even if I would count principal payments as a gain, we would not climb above 34%. However, I believe if ones income above certain amount, it is easier to have higher savings ratio.
On the other hand, our saving from after tax salaries apart from mortgage payments is close to zero. The current saving here is saving from investment and trading returns.
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