Frugal 2018// Quarter 4

We rounded out Quarter 4 of 2018 spending a full 17% less than the same time last year. 

Auto & Transport: Total spending was down 3%.

Bills & Utilities: We're up 14%. Duke Energy provides our energy, but we changed our source to NRG. The rates have been variable, but it looks like the costs have been decently higher in the winter. We'll probably look to change this after this next bill.   

Entertainment: Down 6%. 

Fees & Charges: Holding steady for credit card annual fees.

Food & Dining: Wow, food and dining expenses actually spiked up 38%. Groceries were by by 29%, and restaurants were up by 79%. 

Gifts & Donations: We really skimped on Christmas this year, so it's no surprise that this category was down 29%.

Health & Fitness: Without accounting for Medical Insurance, we'd actually be down in spending.

Home: No change.

Pets: Up by 117%. Nothing special going on. Probably just the timing of purchases.

Shopping: Go figure that quarter 4 of both years would have negative shopping expenditures. This was due to the returns of the cameras that were purchased in third quarter.

Travel: Spending is down by 120%, but again, that largely has to do with the timing of our trips this year. We traveled to Paris and Iceland a little later in the year than we did for South Africa.

Summary: YTD, we are up 2%. However, I can take out the cost of Medical Insurance, which I began tracking this year, and our spending is actually down 4%.

Last year, I did a very detailed breakdown of our 2017 annual spending (read about it here), but I don't think I'm going to break down the annual spend in that level of detail this year. Or would anyone be interested in that?  Let me know in the comments. Here is a quick graph of annual spend for 2018 vs. 2017. 

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