Frugal 2018// Quarter 3

I gotta say, we're not exactly blowing 2017 out of the water with our frugality here.

Auto & Transport: Auto expenses are up +82% compared to last year. While our gas expenses were a little bit higher, this is primarily due to all the tires we've bought this year. I had to get two new tires for my car, and Francisco had to get three for his car.

Bills & Utilities: Up by +55% mostly just due to timing. We paid two Internet bills during this time frame last year and four this year.  Similarly, we paid three Duke Energy bills last year and only two this year.

Entertainment: None this year, but last year, we had...Miller Boat Line? At first, I was like WTF is that, but that expense is dated 7/3/17, so that's definitely the ferry we took to Put-in-Bay for my birthday.

Fees & Charges: This is a line I wish to never see on my expense report, but for 2018, these are annual membership fees for our credit cards. We've gotten a little bit into travel hacking, and some of the cards we've opened do come with an annual fee. Sometimes this is waived the first year, but we're also entering the point where we now have cards that are hitting that one-year point. We've downgraded some, paid the fee for one, and I'm not sure what our overall plan is going to be for the rest.

Last year's expenses look like they were definitely penalty fees, so I at least prefer fees that we have by choice.

Food & Dining: Yay, finally an area where we're down, and -15% is a fair amount for our food spending.  Grocery spending really tapered off this September since we were gone for half the month.

Gifts & Donations: Gift spending has been very low all year, but it was up by about $9 since I made Francisco a puzzle for his birthday. We did not go caving like I had thought we would for his birthday - when faced with a choice, this man will always choose to stay in. :)

Health & Fitness: We'll ignore the cost of Medical Insurance since that wasn't accounted for in last years numbers, but even then, we are up by +440%.  I went to a new GP for a check-up and travel vaccinations - the check-up didn't really happen since the vaccination discussion ended up taking up our entire time. Francisco went to The Little Clinic to get his vaccinations. He is on an HDHP plan, and I have a more standard plan. His visit ended up costing him $203.49, and mine cost $15.00. Health care in this country, SMH. I did also have to pay an additional $84.55 for a typhoid vaccination and malaria tablets. 

I had looked into changing my HSA provider to find a company that allows investing with no fees. Well...um, it's been a few months, and I no longer remember the exact outcome of my research other than it wasn't going to work out how I had hoped. Maybe I had to keep a high minimum balance or something? #bloggerfail I just tried trusty Google, and I think it was Lively that I had previously considered, and maybe it was the $2.50 per month trading fee that put me off? Wait, is that regardless of whether you are actively trading? Yeah, ok, that's definitely why I didn't go with them.

Home: No change. I know a lot of people will see their rent go up on a regular, annual basis, but our landlords haven't raised the rent. Thank goodness. If they did, I suspect we would consider other options on the market. 

Pets: This is up by +204% due to Zharo having to go to the vet AGAIN because he was dehydrated and had crystals in his urine.  Our pet food cost has also increased since we've been buying him more wet food to help avoid any further dehydration issues.

Shopping: This is down slightly by -2%.  There are some items we'd purchased before our trip that still need to be returned or were returned in October so aren't properly reflected here. I generally prefer to get returns accounted for in the same time period as the original purchase, but with all the madness that travel brings, I'm not going to worry about that here. 

Travel: +179% I wasn't expecting it to be so much higher this year, but I guess it makes sense. Last year, the only expenses were all of the pre-bookings for lodging, car rental, and the Catacombs. This year, almost all of our expenses are accounted for in this quarter, including pre-bookings and expenses incurred while actively traveling. 

Summary: We've spent 39% more in this quarter of 2018 than we spent in this quarter of 2017. I think the timing of some expenses really affected our numbers along with all the new tires we added to our car family.

YTD, we are up 7%. We'll have to see how things balance out over the remaining three months of the year.

Side note: I am tracking 401K contributions and Taxes as well, but these are not currently in any of the numbers here.