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[Music]
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hey guys and welcome back to my channel
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and welcome to today's video so today I
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going to sit down with you guys and
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analyze our 2024 spending um I have my
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computer in front of me because I put
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all of my information into Excel and
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we're going to like take a look at it um
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I do have my budget planner here um
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where I have my 2024 budget my 2024
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syncing funds everything that I kind of
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thought would happen in 2024 um if you
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guys know me and you've been following
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me for a while you know that I typically
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am a paper and Pen type of girl but the
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accountant in me really desperately
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needs to analyze information on a
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computer sometimes and so I'm going to
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show you how I compiled everything that
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is in here on to an Excel sheet and we
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can kind of put together a game plan for
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what needs to happen in 2025 um I'm
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planning on filming some of my 2025
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setups very soon but before I do that I
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wanted to take a look at what we
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actually spent in 2024 a huge thing that
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I think a lot of people miss when it
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comes to budgeting is it's not enough to
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just put together a budget sounds great
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it's a great first step but if you want
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to really know what you're spending you
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have to be tracking what you're actually
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spending and then you need to start
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analyzing it and seeing is my budget
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realistic is my budget what I'm actually
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spending if not you need to make
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adjustments and that's one reason why I
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wanted to go ahead and sit down and do
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this um I feel feel like I feel like
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it'll be helpful for me so that I know
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what to budget for in 2025 but I also
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feel like it may be useful for you guys
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to see um so this is going to be a very
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vulner vulnerable type of moment it's
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going to be everything we've spent from
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January through November December we're
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currently in and I didn't want to like
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skew anything with super small number so
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we're not going to look at December but
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let me go ahead and try and figure out
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how to get my screen
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recorded
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while
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um while we are here cuz I want to put
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it in at this moment so let's see I need
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to do shift command five
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shift command five there we
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go and let me
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just do it so you guys can see majority
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of my screen
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here okay so I think that's going to
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work perfect so Sarah put it here
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okay so and hopefully I can figure out
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how to like undo it oh I see okay so you
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probably see my screen over
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here um I took all of my variable
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expenses and all of my syncing funds and
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I put in what the monthly amount was so
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you see that January through November I
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totaled it up and then I averaged it and
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when I did the average I did it over 11
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months because again we're not including
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December you can see December is in
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yellow so let's start with variable
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expenses for electric I thought that
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budget wise it would be around $50 per
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month when you take a look at what our
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average was our average was $94 so
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instead of budgeting $50 every single
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month going forward I need to start
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doing more like a 100 a couple different
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options that you have when it comes to
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some of these utilities that can
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be sorry we have someone going by um
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when you have some of these expenses or
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um utilities that are variable you can
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do one of three things one you could
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just guesstimate which is typically what
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I've done you can also put together a
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thinking fund and let's say instead of
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guess guessing you can take a look at
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what spend spending was and put a total
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of you know our total so far up till
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November was a little over $11,000 so
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you could split that by 12 and put it in
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a syncing fund and then some months are
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going to be low for example I think our
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lowest month was $61 in October um the
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low months will kind of offset the
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higher months or you can do which is
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something that I did recently is I took
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took all of our utilities so electric
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and gas and I added another 3% on top of
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what we spent in 2024 and that is what
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I'm going to be budgeting in
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2025 okay so those are some options
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there but just to give you a little
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background there um I know our electric
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we were under budgeted because again I
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think I budgeted $50 for both electric
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and for gas per month and it ended up
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being being almost double that in terms
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of gas you can see um the total for gas
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was 5.83 the average was $53 so doing
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$50 per month um would be pretty average
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when it comes to that but if you take a
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look at like
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February and um March those well I guess
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January February and March when it's
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coldest here um those were the highest
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months for us so during that time we
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would have been over $20 or $40 under
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over budget so I think again electric
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and gas I've already determined that
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going forward in 2025 I'm just going to
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add 3% to what we paid in each month and
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that's what I'm going to budget that way
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it's really really close to what we
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should anticipate getting built for next
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is going to be groceries so in 2024 I
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decided I was going to budget
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$1,000 per month for groceries and I
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thought that that would be like really
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dramatic and that there is no way that
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we would get anywhere close to that but
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if you take a look at our spending on
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average we spent
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$98 on groceries um there are definitely
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some months where like we're lower so I
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think the lowest month for us was in
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February when we spent
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$633 but then there's some months like
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May and July where we spent over
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$11,000 I was when I was piecing the
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together I was trying to think like okay
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what happened in these months I think
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in and the funny thing is as I'm going
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through I I don't think we were on
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vacation so I don't think that we like
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purchased extra food or like you know
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duplicates of things because we were on
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vacation I'm guessing that we probably
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had people over and we purchased like
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steak for everybody or just more like
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appetizers or maybe we stocked up on
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stuff from Costco um that's something
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that I can definitely deep dive into
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into if I really wanted to know but with
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that being said I typically look at
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groceries and eating out together
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because I think okay when one month is
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low the other is going to be high and
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you can see that here so for example
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when we had groceries of 633 in February
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are eating out was
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$563 so you can kind of see the months
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that groceries are lower eating out is
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going to be higher which makes sense
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because if you're not eating at home as
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much then you're probably eating out
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more um my main thing is when I'm
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looking at these two is I would like to
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keep all food related items under $1,300
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and if you take a look at what we spent
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you can't see the sum but it ended up
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being
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$321 so
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1321 as an average spent for groceries
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and eating out which is exactly what I
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budgeted so I'm going to keep those
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exactly the same there's going to be
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months where we have groceries that are
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more more expensive and there's going to
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be months when the eating out is more
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expensive and I don't care so much if
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each category is accurate just as long
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as in total they're pretty accurate one
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thing I have to say is as I was taking a
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look I was thinking that over the year
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we've probably eaten out less because we
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really started prioritizing eating at
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home and having like homecooked meals
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and only really eating out once a week
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um and so you can see our highest eating
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out was in January February April was
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also pretty high and then it they were
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like lower months September was higher
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because of my birthday um September is a
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big month we have my birthday my
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sister's birthday Jason's mom's birthday
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and I know for a fact we went out to eat
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and we like split the bill with my
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sister and her family even though there
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were a bunch of other people with us so
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that's why that's higher um
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November I'm guessing that's High
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because we had family in town and so we
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went and probably ate out more than
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usual um so again it's kind of funny I
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would think that in some of these months
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it would be lower but I think in reality
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that 1,300 per month for food is
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probably exactly where we need to be so
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I'm good with that I think that's going
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to be what we stick to in
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2025 it may seem like a lot and I I
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guess I should probably explain this and
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I'll do this again in our 2025 budget
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setups but our groceries and eating out
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kind of Encompass a lot so for groceries
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it includes Macy's hot lunch because her
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school does not have a cafeteria so we
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do hot lunch and she gets hot lunch
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usually about three times a week so we
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sign up for that like in the beginning
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of the month and then she gets you know
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hot lunch at school it also
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includes breakfast lunch dinner for me
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and Jason it includes snacks for the
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girls for um school it it includes like
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protein drinks and Extras like that we
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typically stock up at Costco and get you
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know stuff in bulk and so it includes
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that which can be around here for a
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while um for eating out if we treat
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other people to eating out we usually
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include it there Jason and I also really
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like to go on like a date night or we
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call it a we just go to lunch usually
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like once a week and we include it in
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eating out so it encompasses a lot I
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know $1,300 seems like a lot for a
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family of four but I feel like we do
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have a lot of freedom in that and if we
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needed a cut back we definitely could um
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next is going to be household so for
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household I have been budgeting $200 per
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month and as you can see our average for
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the last 11 months has been two
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$212 so right on track there's
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definitely some months where it's lower
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some months that it's higher I think
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some of these months if we had like
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lower numbers I would also like purchase
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something that we've been waiting to
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purchase so for example I got like new
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towels for my downstairs basement so
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things like that um but it seems like
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we're exactly where we need to be next
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is gas for our car so I have been
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budgeting $200 per month and you can see
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the average is
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$169.95 now I want to see because some
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of these can be skewed because of
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vacation so we did go on vacation in
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March and it looks like I did accurately
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reflect that I put that in our vacation
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syncing fund
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and then in July we went to visit
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Jason's brother Zach and it looks like I
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did include the gas in our gas um
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variable expense so that's why that's
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272 um I am guessing that 175 is going
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to be the sweet spot for us so I'm
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probably going to decrease it and do 175
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for gas going forward keep in mind this
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is gas for my car Jason's car and both
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of our motorcycles he has a Harley I
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have a like Honda moped um and I feel
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like besides the random vacations that
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we've taken we've been kind of in that
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sweet spot of 175 so we're going to go
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ahead and do that um next is unbudgeted
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so I don't budget anything for
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unbudgeted but this is something that I
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always have as a placeholder just for
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random stuff I did not deep dive into
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this yet but I'm definitely going to
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take a look and see why we have some
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random ones here
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these could be related to kids
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activities this could be related to like
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signing up for like Macy's school um
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registration it could be for signing up
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for summer camp those types of things
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because if I don't have money set aside
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in a syncing fund already for that
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sometimes I'll just throw in on
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unbudgeted um so I'm going to do a deep
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dive into that because really spending
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$1,800 on unbudgeted and having no
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category for it is not something that I
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want to do so I'm going to go ahead and
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deep dive into that um and I think in
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2025 I really want to try and eliminate
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having unbudgeted um if possible I would
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like to like you know if I know
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something's coming up that's kind of
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outside of our Norm I would like
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to take that and put it in our next
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month's budget so those are our variable
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expenses um again I feel like we're
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pretty on track but there's definitely
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some that I'm going to adjust in
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2025 next is our sinking funds so for
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syncing funds I took everything we spent
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from syncing funds not what I
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contributed because I don't think the
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contributing part matters as much I want
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to see what we actually need um and some
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of this stuff was really interesting so
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for example activities on average we
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spent about $100 for activities and this
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is going to be Mimi's gymnastics Macy's
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softball Macy's cheer um in November we
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also paid for um the girls to Start
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Tumbling
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I know in 2025 the girls will be doing
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tumbling and I think that's roughly 178
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per month so I'm not going to be able to
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do $100 per month for activities it's
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going to have to be higher and if Macy
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decides to do cheer again that's going
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to be even higher if I if we decide to
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do um softball it's going to be even
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higher so that's one of those things
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that it's it's really hard to pinpoint
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and really know what to contribute but I
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think will just have to keep evaluating
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that evaluating it depending on what's
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going on and if Macy's doing cheer I
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doubt that she's going to also do
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tumbling at the same time that would be
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a lot cheer is a big commitment so I
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think in 2025 I'm probably going to have
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activities set at $200 per month and if
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we need to adjust it depending on what's
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going on we'll do that beauty um on
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average we spend about $56 per month on
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beauty so this is going to be haircuts
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for me and the girls this is going to be
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makeup face wash that type of stuff um I
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think for beauty I'll probably stick to
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about $50 per month or just kind of up
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it depending on what we need um me and
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the girls don't go and get our hair done
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that often I really don't use much
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makeup so it should not be that much um
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for car insurance this was kind of eye
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opening so we spent $2,300 almost $2,400
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on car insurance um this is for both of
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our cars and both of our motorcycles
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and on average it was about 215 per
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month so right now we contribute $200
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per month so we're definitely going to
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be underfunded if that if we keep doing
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that the other thing is I want to make a
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note in 2025 to look at other providers
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for insurance we've had the same
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provider for our entire marriage so I
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think over 11 years and I know from
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experience with other people and talking
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about cost of insurance that usually
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when you switch you get better deals so
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we're definitely going to have to look
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into that car maintenance on average we
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spent about 150 per month and that was
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about $1,600 so I think that's probably
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exactly where we need to be $150 I know
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Jason wants to get new tires for his car
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next year so I think we'll just continue
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doing 150 per month um I think right now
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I have to take a look I think right now
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we do
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$100 so we need to bump that up
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Christmas and Gifts um our total is
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close to
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$66,000 and that's $536 per month so
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Christmas and Gifts encompasses a lot
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it's the kids birthday parties it
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includes um like any special holidays
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Christmas birthdays it includes Macy and
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Mila's friends birthday presents because
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we get invited to a ton of birthday
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parties so I feel like that's not too
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bad considering how much is encompassed
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in there it also includes like Mother's
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Day gifts Father's Day gifts um gifts we
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get for Jason's parents and like you
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know nieces and nephews all of that so I
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feel like that's a pretty accurate
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number I think we'll stick with the
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probably 500 range um the clothes is
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also one of those things that I think is
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kind of interesting to see so um Jason
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really doesn't buy many clothes but me
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and the girls we buy quite a bit so
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that's going to be an interesting thing
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I'm going to try and utilize my
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allowance a little bit more for clothes
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going forward just because I'm changing
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my strategy with my allowance spending
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but for the girls I think we probably
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need to up their budget for clothes to
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be more in that 150 range um $100 just
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doesn't seem to be count like cutting it
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anymore Costco $6 or $60 per um year
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that's perfect diapers we're not really
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using anymore entertainment and vacation
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so this includes all fun stuff that we
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do with the kids so going to a movie
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going rollerblading taking them to like
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fun adventures it also includes our
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Vacations so this past year we went to
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Colorado in the springtime for skiing
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summertime to go to the YMCA Camp and
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then we did random things like like I
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said go to visit Jason's brother Zach a
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few times so we spent almost 8008 $8,600
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on um entertainment and vacation we have
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been budgeting $500 per month for that
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and you can tell that's severely
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underfunded so I think what we need to
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do is just kind of evaluate like what
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we're doing um if that needs to be upped
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I feel like we don't do extravagant
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vacations but when we do vacations it
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does like it's easier to rent a van than
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rather than having like buying a van and
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spending all that money so again that's
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something that I think I might look into
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more and evaluate if that's something
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that we need to increase it definitely
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seems like our spending is over what
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like our goal is to be under um family
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pictures we
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spent close to $800 on family pictures
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this is for not only our like annual
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family pictures but also like any
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pictures the girls do with school and
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activities um we do Buy pictures for
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them like once a year per kid and then
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if they're in activities like cheer we
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do the pictures for that too um family
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pictures are expensive it also includes
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if we like when we do Macy's yearbook
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every year and when I purchase new
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pictures for like our wall um so it's a
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lot it's a lot Home Maintenance we spend
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about
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$1,500 I feel like that's pretty good I
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think we budget $200 per month so that's
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kind of right on track I'm going to keep
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doing it that way cuz eventually we'll
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have bigger maintenance things to fund
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subscriptions this is really just for my
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um Amazon Prime subscription and
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also and also um my gym membership
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summer camp it looks like we spent about
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$1,700 so roughly 153 per month crazy
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that's how much we spent in 2025 we're
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going to have lots of changes because
00:20:54
Milo will no longer be at Her Like
00:20:57
Preschool um but we will have to pay for
00:21:00
after care for her because our school
00:21:02
district does not have full day
00:21:04
kindergarten yet and we will need to pay
00:21:06
for a summer camp for her so um I will
00:21:09
have to evaluate that and get an idea
00:21:13
what we are going to need to be spending
00:21:14
for that tolls we're right on track with
00:21:18
tolls I think for a while I was putting
00:21:20
in $40 per month but $20 is just fine
00:21:23
because our average spending is1
00:21:25
1842 trash um it's again roughly $22 so
00:21:31
I think we're right on track with that
00:21:33
and then for water I think I was doing
00:21:36
$2 per month but I upped it to 50 so I
00:21:39
think we should be good there but anyway
00:21:41
those are all of our syncing fund
00:21:43
spending so there's definitely some
00:21:44
stuff that I need to do behind the
00:21:46
scenes research a little bit more into
00:21:48
some of these balances and really kind
00:21:50
of put together a better plan for 2025
00:21:54
there's some categories that were right
00:21:55
on track like groceries eating out were
00:21:57
good there nothing needs to be changed
00:21:59
but with some of our life changes um
00:22:02
like going on vacations more and with
00:22:05
like hosting more birthday parties and
00:22:08
having Mila being you know starting
00:22:11
kindergarten and doing summer camps like
00:22:13
we'll definitely have to re-evaluate
00:22:16
what we're contributing and just be
00:22:18
really mindful of you know where we're
00:22:21
putting certain balances so that is it
00:22:24
for
00:22:26
me so that is it for me today I hope you
00:22:30
guys enjoyed getting to see some of that
00:22:33
analysis um like I said normally I'm a
00:22:36
paper and Pen type of girl I love just
00:22:39
you know having stickers and writing
00:22:41
things down um it feels more like real
00:22:44
to me but every once in a while you need
00:22:46
to put pull up Excel and make it work
00:22:48
and I feel like this was super helpful
00:22:51
um just getting an idea of what our
00:22:53
actual spending is I'm going to do the
00:22:55
same thing with my business budget
00:22:56
because I do have
00:22:59
everything from Etsy and YouTube and
00:23:00
everything um and I just want to see
00:23:02
like what we're spending on
00:23:05
certain certain things with the with the
00:23:07
business um I really encourage you to do
00:23:10
the same thing if you have time before
00:23:12
you start setting up your 2025 planner
00:23:14
um the one I'm showing you here is my
00:23:16
2024 planner but I do have a planner for
00:23:19
sale for 2025 if you are like me and you
00:23:22
like to do paper and Pen budgeting I
00:23:25
will have a link down below there's also
00:23:27
a discount code if you want to pick one
00:23:29
up we have a lot left over so we're
00:23:30
trying to get them out to you guys um
00:23:33
before the new year but anyway I hope
00:23:35
you guys enjoyed getting to see a little
00:23:37
bit of that and I will see you guys next
00:23:39
time bye guys
00:23:42
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[Music]
