Our Family’s Annual Spend for 2021

This post outlines our family’s annual spend for 2021. This is for a family of 3 in Cork, Ireland.

Total spend in 2021 came to:

€38,064

This is only 4% less than last year instead of the 18.5% we had forecasted this time last year due to halving our remaining mortgage and selling our Canadian property, getting rid of that negative monthly cash flow.

Not included in this figure are the costs of our garden renovation which added to our home equity (12k), the capital costs of our “new” car (6.5k) and the income taxes we paid on our additional income here in Ireland (<1k) as the taxes are income-related expenses. Also excluded are any tax refunds we got from last years overpayments (8.6k).

Last year’s graphics were from YNAB but I converted my expense tracking to my own excel tracker template which I used to create the below graphics/reports.

Overall spend

Here is a summary of the main categories.

Food

Food became our biggest expense in 2021 (9.6k). Our grocery category (8k) 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. Obviously, the food bought out of the house like lunches, restaurants and coffees are minimal due to COVID.

If we convert the full annual food spend of 9.6k into cost per person per week (assuming 2 adults and 1 toddler (I’ll average at 2.75), it comes to close to 67€/week/person.

This is a 23% increase from last years food spend. We got a lot more take-away in 2021 (38% or 400€ more than the previous year). Spend at the grocery store went up 18% (1,468€ more) compared to last year. We did less meal planning and more ad-hoc shops. Our son is eating more now so this could account for some of that increase. Also Mr. MH is coeliac so we spend a bit more on gluten-free pasta and bread and since Mr. MH is now the main grocery shopper and chef, we’ve been eating more meat and more red meat which is more expensive. We really did try to cut back on meat for a while in 2019 and 2020 which did reduce costs but it took a lot of effort to try and find new recipes all the time that didn’t end up all tasting the same. I found veggie recipes use a lot of the same base ingredients and eventually most of our meals ended up tasting very similar. I’d still like to eat less meat but this change has been bumped down the list with everything else that’s been going on.

Monthly bills

Monthly bills came to a little over 7k. The vast majority of our monthly bills was our mortgage (56% or 3,978€). The rest were made up of Gas, Mobiles, Electricity, Internet, Refuse, Life Insurance (for me only to cover our mortgage). Electricity was up 20% from last year (126€ more) and Gas was up 16% (139€ more) – this could be because we were away for the most expensive months in Jan-Feb 2020 in addition to rate increases. Internet was up 20% (100€ more) due to an increase in contract cost despite shopping around for intro offers.

Home

House related costs were our 3rd largest expense coming in at 5.2k. Sure, what else did we have to spend money on last year? We bought a new bed and mattress, a BBQ + supplies, picnic supplies (for all those COVID picnics meeting people outside), an awning for the garden, a humidifier and Christmas decorations etc. Our oven and hob gave up and needed to be replaced. Home maintenance was up this year too. We needed to replace a few taps and sink parts, and a roof repair for a leak as well as a few garden supplies. And the usual home insurance and TV license.

In terms of increases from last year, we spent 27% more on furniture, 45% more on small appliances and 86% more on maintenance than last year.

The joys of owning a 16-year-old home and all the appliances start to go at the same time. Something to keep in mind when looking to buy a house.

Entertainment

This category is slightly inflated by the cost of 2 rugby world cup packages, half of which we will be repaid for at some point. Mr. MH’s lifeline during COVID was sport so there are increased costs for sporting events and sports tv packages, he also got a second-hand bike. The next biggest cost in this category was sightseeing. We got annual passes to both Blarney Castle and Fota as some of the only outings we could do during lockdowns. The gadget category includes some podcast memberships, headphones, a PS4 controller and SAD lamp. The alcohol spend is only those bought directly at an off-license, the remainder is included in our grocery spend. We both play video games so spend a bit there.

Transportation

Transport costs were up from last year too coming in at just over €3,200. We paid cash for our car so have no car payment in this category. Despite not commuting to work we still spent almost €1,400 on petrol. We did have a few trips up to Sligo/Mayo and even though I am not commuting, we still drive around a good bit to various playgrounds and nature walks with our son. Even still, when we were both commuting to work, me with the car and Mr. MH on the bus, and able to drive to visit friends and family, we spent closer to 2k on petrol and public transport alone. Car repairs cost 71% more than last year as our previous car was starting to need more maintenance, part of the reason we got a new one. Motor tax was 33% more as I made a mistake paying for a full year on the old car before we traded it in which I didn’t realise I couldn’t get back. NCT was also up as we had to NCT both the old and new car.

Medical

Our next biggest expense was medical (3k), the biggest part of this was health insurance (almost 2k). We used to have cover through Mr. MH’s work and when we decided to go down to one non-permanent income, this was an additional cost we had to cover. The 2 other biggest costs were Mr. MH’s glucose sensors and GP/counselling costs.

Other

The remaining categories had a spend of 1k or less and include things like:

Weddings/Family events for a friends wedding and a 50th birthday party which we all went away for.

Work expenses wise, my biggest expense was a 49″ widescreen monitor.

Personal expenses such as clothes, shoes, accessories, Mr. MH’s vape.

Gifts/charity came out to almost 1k. This was for birthdays and Christmas and charity giving.

Goals for next year

When I did this exercise last year there were very obvious expenses that I could see we wouldn’t have this year (mortgage reduction, Canadian property costs gone). Looking at the above, I don’t see anything that really stands out.

Food-wise, we may be able to cut down on costs by getting back into the habit of meal planning and eating less red meat. Buying a whole chicken and throwing it in the crockpot is a handy/cheap 2-3 meals. Maybe we could shave 800€ off there.

Hopefully, we won’t have anything else crop up in terms of home maintenance and I don’t think we’ll have any big furniture costs again for a while so that might bring us down another 2k.

I also don’t intend to spend any more on work-related expenses so that’s another 1k.

Car related expenses should also be close to 800€ less as we won’t have the costs from getting an old car ready for trade-in.

That would bring us down to 33,400€. However, we do have travel plans this year so that may cost 2,300€ more than last year, bringing us back up to 35,700€.

My goal for 2021 was 32k. I was off by 6k. My biggest oversight perhaps was the amount of additional food costs my son would add to our bill, and inflation.

This year I’ll target 36k.

Early retirement impact

In terms of early retirement planning, I think I need to be more realistic in my forecasting on cost of living, and subsequently the amount of money we need invested to cover those costs.

Our latest projection was to reach financial independence in 11 years to cover an annual cost of 24k (once our mortgage is paid off) and spending 30k/year from now until then. After increasing the cost of living during accumulation to 36k and increasing cost of living in retirement to 32k this brings our estimations up to 14 years on 1 part-time income. If we go up to 2 full-time incomes once our son is in school, this may reduce further. Still, retiring at 50 and 54 as a worst-case is not a bad goal to have.

If you’re interested in calculating your own time to retirement, I have a questionnaire format excel template in my paid member’s area.