Happy New Year dear readers. I hope you all had a wonderful time over the break.
Today’s post outlines our family of 3’s annual spend for 2023. It is worth noting that half the year was spent in Ireland and the other half was spent in Canada.
Total spend in 2023 came to:
€63,547
This is almost double last year‘s spend. The increase was largely due to our move to Canada.
Not included in this figure are the costs/proceeds from the sale of our house in Ireland, the sale of our investments, our income tax refund (8k), or the cost of our new car in Canada- offset by the sale of our car in Ireland (17k) and any other income offsets.
Overall Spend
Here is a summary of the main categories with spend over 2,000€.
And all main spend categories summarised by annual and average monthly spend in both Euro and Canadian Dollar.
EURO
CAD
Food
EUR
CAD
Food stayed almost exactly the same as last year at 10.1k.
Our grocery category (8.7k) includes everything you’d buy at the grocery store so can include alcohol, toiletries, cleaning products, the odd centre aisle item like small tools, toys for our son etc.
Grocery spend was about 400€ more than last year but we spent less on take-away and restaurants (600€ less combined).
So even given the rate of inflation this year on food, we don’t seem to be seeing that much of an increase in our grocery bill, this is likely due to our efforts to eat as little processed foods as possible. We also plan our meals and make lists for grocery shopping which helps reduce food waste.
If we convert the full annual food spend of 10.1k into cost per person per week – assuming 2 adults and 1 small fella (I’ll average at 2.75), it comes to 71€/week/person.
For those that are wondering about the food cost difference between Canada and Ireland. We haven’t really noticed much of a difference.
We shop online at Walmart which helps us avoid the shopping when hungry additions you inevitably throw into your cart, and are usually able to find discount codes using this chrome plug-in that knocks off about 20$ each week. As above, we try to eat whole, local, organic, fairly treated foods as much as possible, so even with the added costs for organic, I do think it is less than a lot of pre-made, processed foods would be. We are averaging about 200€/week since moving to Canada.
Monthly Bills
EUR
CAD
Monthly bills came in at just under 10k which is 2,500€ more than last year. The vast majority was mortgage/rent (6.4k). This is higher than last year as we are now renting instead of paying a small mortgage.
Gas was only 100€ more than last year at 1,265€ but we didn’t have a gas bill once we moved to Canada as our rental is heated with Electricity.
Electricity was 80€ less than last year at 457€. Electricity in Quebec is relatively cheap at 7.3¢/kwh.
Internet was 127€ more than last year as we are now paying 44€/month instead of the average 37€/month we were spending in Ireland (due to new customer offers).
Mobile was slightly less than last year at 520€ but this is only because we’ve been sharing a phone. I am very rarely not in a place with wifi so I don’t really need a phone plan. We are now paying about 30€/month for a bring-your-own-device plan of 20GB and unlimited calls/texts in Canada.
Moving Costs
EUR
CAD
As mentioned, we moved back to Canada this year. This is hopefully a once-in-a-decade cost ;). We spent 7,560€ to ship our furniture. It was well worth the cost for us to have all our belongings transplanted into our new home to help us feel at home more quickly. We spent a lot on our furniture and accessories in Ireland and it made sense to ship them rather than sell them off and replace them on this end. The other costs were flights and shipping materials.
Vacation
EUR
CAD
We spent more than double on travel this year than we did last year at 7.6k. The reason it is higher is that we had 2 weeks in Portugal (from Ireland), 3 weeks in Paris (from Canada) and bought our flights from Canada to Portugal and Ireland for early 2024 in Dec of 2023.
So flights came in at 3,356€ which was 310€ for Portugal from Cork for the 3 of us, 1,278€ for Paris/Ireland from Montreal for 2 of us, and 1,766€ for Portugal/Ireland from Montreal for the 3 of us.
Food came to 1,850€ for the 5 weeks so about 370€/week (compared to the average of 200€/week when staying home), due to taking part in restaurants and nights out on holiday.
Despite being abroad for 5 weeks, our accommodation costs only came to 1,912€. This averages out to 54€/night including 3 weeks in Paris. We managed this largely because we used our guest points that we had built up from home-exchange. We managed to stay almost the entire 3 weeks in Paris without paying for accommodation and we still have 2-3 weeks of points left over!
Here are some of the places we stayed.
Home
EUR
CAD
Home costs were significantly more than last year coming in at 6.7k compared to 1.8k. Part of the reason this looks to be so much higher is that our home-related costs last year were probably lower than usual as we knew we would be moving and did not buy anything we didn’t need. Once we moved, we had to buy a lot of new stuff to get set up in Canada. We sold a lot of our electronics and some furniture in Ireland which helped towards some of the costs but I can’t say we didn’t have fun buying new stuff.
We spent 2.4k on electronics including 2 new TVs, a sound system and 2 PS5s.
We spent 1.2k on furniture including dining room chairs, a kitchen island and a headboard.
We spent 900€ on small appliances including an espresso machine and BBQ.
Accessories costs seem very low at 385€ but this is because we offset these purchases with sales of stuff in Ireland. We sold off 2.4k of stuff in Ireland but bought 2.8k of stuff in Canada. Biggest costs here were an inflatable hot tub, new Christmas decorations and blinds. Although we are renting, we did still need a lot of organisational things like towel bars, soap dispensers, storage bins, door mats etc.
Smaller amounts then, were spent on maintenance, renos getting the house ready for sale, plants and insurance.
Our insurance costs seem so low as we got refunds from our cancelled Irish policies.
Medical
EUR
CAD
Medical costs were higher this year, coming in at almost 4k compared to 1.4k last year. Although we only needed health insurance for part of the year it still cost us 1.8k as we had to pay for interim insurance in Canada while we waited for our government insurance plan to kick in.
Doctor costs were also quite a bit higher at 1k. The largest part of this was my autism assessment and diagnosis which I had to pay for privately. Mr. MH also had to go to a private clinic a few times in Canada to get forms completed for his license and to get a prescription as we don’t yet have a family doctor.
Prescription costs were also higher as we had to pay out of pocket for Mr. MH’s diabetic stuff until we could apply for coverage under the provincial plan.
Little MH had a broken tooth which ultimately needed to be extracted, poor guy, so that brought up our dental costs. We should be getting a tax credit against that next year though which should offset that.
These costs should be significantly lower next year once all our tax credits and benefits kick in.
Transportation
EUR
CAD
Transport costs were only slightly higher than last year at 3.4k instead of 2.8k.
Petrol was about the same at 1.3k although I expect this to be lower next year. When in Ireland we had a 2012 hybrid but when we first moved to Canada we borrowed an older car for the first few months which would have cost more in petrol. In October we bought a 2021 hybrid and are seeing a big reduction in fuel costs so this will be an interesting comparison next year.
Car repairs and maintenance came in at 1k and is largely due to the cost of our winter tires. We hope to get a few winters out of them so again, hopefully this will be less next year.
Car insurance appears lower as we got a refund from our Irish policy which offset the costs on the Irish side. Next year this will appear higher. We pay 870€ for car insurance.
Entertainment
EUR
CAD
Entertainment was 1,400€ less than last year. We spent 480€ less on video games and 285€ less on alcohol. Mr. MH also got money back on sporting events as he had spare tickets to the Rugby World Cup which he sold on. In total, we spent 2.1k on entertainment.
Spending across sub-categories was fairly even between 100€ and 400€ on each.
Other
EUR
CAD
The remaining categories were largely between 1,000€ and 2,000€ each.
Misc was the highest at 1.8k. I got my Irish citizenship this year! This was the cost of my certificate and last-minute flight changes to Ireland.
Another 1.8k was spent on personal stuff like clothing, toiletries, haircuts, accessories, winter boots etc.
I had 1.7k of expenses for work, including indemnity insurance and customs on the shipment of my laptop.
Giving includes charity and gifts at 1.7k. Gifts include birthdays, Christmas and a thank-you gift for my parents for minding little MH while we were in Paris.
Kid stuff includes things like, activities, books, clothing, school supplies, and toys. The biggest cost here was a swing set and trampoline.
Blog costs came in at 873€ for insurance and subscriptions to run the website.
Health costs include things like classes and exercise equipment (800€). This year we bought a bike, a paddle board and some weights and I went to a few yoga classes.
Goals for next year
Needless to say, I’m hoping our costs next year will be significantly lower!
I’m going to target 43,000€ (63,000$). This will include 2.5 months in Portugal and Ireland along with our increased costs from renting.