This post outlines our family’s annual spend for 2022. This is for a family of 3 in Cork, Ireland.

For longer time followers, I know it’s been a while – I will be posting some big life updates soon so stay tuned. In the meantime, see below the details of our spending from last year.

Total spend in 2022 came to:

€34,907

This is just over 3,100€ less than last year which is under my predicted 36k!

Not included in this figure are investments (5k). Also excluded is the tax refund we got from last year’s overpayments (2.7k) and any other income offsets.

Expense tracking and reporting in this article is done using my own excel tracker template.

Overall spend

Here is a summary of the main categories with spend over 400€.

And all main spend categories summarised by annual and average monthly spend.

Food

Food remained our biggest expense in 2022 (10.1k), making up 30% of our annual expenses. This is up 46€/month on average compared to last year.

Our grocery category (8.3k) 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 went up by 300€ compared to last year but take-away spend was 200€ less than last year so we did a bit better cooking at home.

Restaurant spend was our biggest increase by almost 800€ as we were in Canada for 2 months and treated friends/family to meals as we were staying with them.

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 an increased effort to eat less meat.

If we convert the full annual food spend of 10.1k into cost per person per week (assuming 2 adults and 1 toddler (I’ll average at 2.75), it comes to 71€/week/person (up 4€/week/person from last year).

Monthly bills

Monthly bills came to a little over 7.2k or 20% of our annual spend. The vast majority of our monthly bills was our mortgage (55% or 3,963€). The rest were made up of Gas, Mobiles, Electricity, Internet, Refuse, Life Insurance (for me only to cover our mortgage). Gas was 300€ more this year due to rate increases. Electricity was 63€ less than last year due to the government credit. Combining the two brings our utility costs up by 238€ from last year. The remaining costs were fairly similar to last year.

Entertainment

Entertainment made up 11% of our annual spend. We spent 140€ more on entertainment this year totalling 3,603€ but sub-categories have shifted. Last year the biggest spend was sporting events which was overtaken this year by video games (double from last year). Alcohol also doubled from last year, some of which was because we could have people over again. The alcohol spend is only those bought directly at an off-license, the remainder is included in our grocery spend. Gadget spend was a bit higher as we treated ourselves to a Nintendo Switch this year. Remaining categories include nights out, sporting events, apps/patreon memberships, netflix, sightseeing (passes to Blarney Castle and Gardens), books, movies, and board games.

Vacation

Travel costs made up 10% of our annual spend coming in at 3,547€. Last year we spent 1 week in Portugal and 2 months in Canada. The one week in Portugal came to 1,482€ – 300€ for flights, 560€ for accommodation, 438€ for food/drink and 96€ for transport (trains and ubers). The only costs included in this category for the Canada trip was the flights coming in at 1,865€. As we were visiting family we didn’t have accommodation costs and food/drink costs were included in our main food/drink category. The other cost included in the accommodation line in this category was our annual membership for homeexchange (149€) which allowed us to host a student for 3 weeks and gather enough guest points to cover our accommodation in Paris this Fall for the Rugby World Cup.

Transportation

Transportation made up 8% of our annual spend coming in at 2,799€. This is 433€ less than last year mainly due to the fact that I paid motor tax for 2 cars last year before we got our “new” car. Petrol was about the same at 1,334€ and car insurance was higher at 728€ as we had a break-in and had to pay an additional 300€ as a deductible to get it fixed. Remaining categories include maintenance (313€), motor tax (180€), taxis (96€), tolls (70€), parking (53€) and public transport (25€).

Home

Home costs came in at 1,892€ (6% of annual spend). Sub-categories include home insurance (393€), accessories (378€ – we got some new bedding and a security camera), maintenance (354€), garden stuff (341€), local property tax (241€ – the additional top up from updates to valuation was paid in 2023), TV license and small appliance costs (spare part for our coffee machine).

Personal

Personal spend came out to 1,477€ and includes things like clothing (both Mr. MH and I needed a wardrobe refresh which we did in Canada), accessories (travel bag, backpack, earrings, shoes and a travel mug), vape and toiletries.

Medical

Medical costs came in at 1,449€. The biggest expense last year was therapy at 656€ (more on that to follow in the life update post but thankfully I am doing MUCH better), supplies (356€) includes things like multi-vitamins, probiotics and other non-prescription stuff bought at a pharmacy, Mr. MH’s glucose sensors ran out while in Canada and we had to pay out of pocket (221€), GP visits (200€), prescriptions (172€) and dentist (50€). Health insurance is a minus because we switched to monthly payments for 2023 instead of paying the full year up-front and we got a refund mid-year due to reduced services resulting from COVID.

Other

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

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

Blog costs came in at 842€ for insurance, website and subscription costs.

Kid stuff came in at 321€ including clothing, accessories, toys, books and other supplies. We get most of our clothes from my sister-in-law (thank you!).

Misc includes postage and lottery tickets (238€).

Weddings/Special Occasions (168€) was for accommodation and food/drink for family events.

Goals for next year

I’m actually fairly happy with last year’s expenses and would be happy to aim for the same amount again this year. That said, we have some big changes coming up this year which will hopefully reduce our cost of living even further, potentially by another 8k bringing our annual spend down to 27k/year. Stay tuned for more on that!

All in all we spent:

39,592€

This is slightly less than last year even though it includes additional expenses like:

• health/dental insurance costs (which we lost as a benefit when my husband left work to be a stay at home dad)
• blog costs (which ramped up this year as I started providing consultations and needed insurance)
• a portion of our mini-retirement trial to Portugal and
• costs from our Canadian property which we sold back in July

Not included in this figure are the costs related to the sale of our property (realtor, legal fees, capital gains taxes and withholding taxes and so on), also excluded are the income taxes we paid on our additional income here in Ireland as these are income-related expenses.

For those wondering, the report graphics are from my expense tracking tool YNAB.

Overall Spend

Here is a summary of the main categories

Monthly bills

The vast majority of our monthly bills was our mortgage (77% or 9,194€). The rest were made up of Gas, Mobiles, Electricity, Internet, Refuse, Life Insurance (for me only to cover our mortgage) and Skype. In December, we paid down our mortgage with the sale proceeds from our Canadian property so this category should be almost halved for 2021.

Food

The next biggest spend was food. Our grocery category includes everything you’d buy at the grocery store so can include alcohol, toiletries, cleaning products, cat food/litter, 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. This does not include the food costs we spent during our 7 weeks in Portugal so this spend is only for 45 weeks of the year.

If we convert that into cost per person per week (assuming 2 adults 1 toddler and 1 cat (I’ll average at 2.75), it comes to close to 60€/week/adult, 36€/week/child and 9€/week/cat.

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. We really did try to cut back on meat for a while 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.

Medical

Our next biggest expense, which we didn’t have last year, was health insurance. 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 cost below covers 1.5 years of cover as when Mr. MH left work we took over his corporate policy and just paid the rest of the year. In December, we took out our own policy and paid for the whole year upfront. Mr. MH also pays out of pocket for glucose monitoring sensors which are not currently covered by the long-term illness scheme.

Home

House related costs were our 4th largest expense. Sure, what else did we have to spend money on last year? We bought 2 new mattresses (the cost of which was offset by the sale of some of our furniture in Canada), a few “accessories” like toy storage, pressure washer, xmas decorations, a mirror, plants, stainless steel pans, pillows etc. Our dishwasher gave up in September, so that was replaced. And the usual home insurance, maintenance, property tax (yes, Canadian readers you read that amount right, just 236€ for the year for property tax!) and TV license.

Mini-retirement Trial

Our mini-retirement costs of 2,315€ were what we actually spent in Jan-Feb while in Portugal. The other larger costs like accommodation and flights would have been paid before we went so were included in last years annual spend review. The 2,315€ includes Food, Transport, Accommodation and Misc spend while in Portugal. For more details on what the mini-retirement cost in total you can check out this article.

Transportation

Transport came in at just over 2k. We paid cash for our car so have no car payment in this category. Despite not commuting to work we still spent almost 1k on petrol. We did have a few trips up to Sligo/Mayo/Dublin pre-lock down 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.

Investments

I’m not sure about calling this an investment but this is where I decided to categorise our Canadian property costs. The condo was cash flow negative and had been costing us about 2,500€/year out of pocket to maintain. As we sold it in July, we only were our of pocket 1,615€ for 2020. Again another cost we will not have for 2021!

Entertainment

Another expense category wiped out by COVID. Biggest expense here was Mr. MH got a smart watch, 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 and we paid for a 6 month pass to a Blarney Castle and Gardens which has lovely walking paths free from burned rubbish and dog poo, which we have grown accustomed to in our local playground and nature walks.

Kid stuff

We actually spent a good bit on toys which I was surprised by. We had been buying toys second hand before the lock down but have stalled on that until it’s safer to buy used goods. I also like to buy open ended play type toys and natural materials like wood which can be hard to find in the local second hand market so do splurge every now and then. The 652€ includes Christmas and birthday items, some of which we purchased with cash from family in Canada so this is not all our personal spend.

Clothing/accessory wise, we luckily get most of our clothes from Mr. MH’s sister so explains the small sum. We did dish out for new shoes/wellies, training pants etc.

Supply wise this includes a new baby monitor to replace the one that broke by being pulled off the dresser, the sleep training clock, probiotics and so on.

Just thinking on the cost of kids, while childcare costs are usually the biggest cost to consider, looking at our own expenses, if you include the 1,347€ estimate of food spend + 984€ below = 2,331€ for the year minus 1,680€ child benefit = 651€. Of course, if you consider foregone income from staying home then this becomes a far more costly life choice!

Weddings

We had a family wedding in Feb right before lockdown. Does that ever feel like a lifetime ago! Anyway, this category cost us just shy of 800€ once gift, food, accommodation and travel were accounted for.

Other

The remaining categories include things like:

Personal expenses such as clothes, Mr. MH’s vape, hair cuts. We spent a good bit on new clothes this year as we were well overdue a refresh.

The blog costs are racking up for things like an accounting consultation, domain and hosting costs and insurance.

In terms of work expenses, I bought a desk, a stand-up desk due to working from home and renewed my professional association membership.

Goals for 2021

The power of tracking your expenses means you can really drill down and analyse where you might best be suited to cut back without feeling too much pain.

For us, our biggest expenses are accommodation and food. As our current strategy is to pay down our mortgage asap, and we have halved our current mortgage with the sale of our condo, for 2021 we will see a reduction in that expense line by 5,700€. We also got a better mortgage interest rate due to the lower loan to value ratio.

We also will no longer have the 1,615€ to maintain the Canadian property.

I don’t foresee any major changes in the other categories as we’ve already fine-tuned our spending as much as we can. While there may be savings in one category, I’m leaving wiggle room as things usually crop up in other categories. For example, we won’t need new clothes, mattresses or a dishwasher for a while but something else may give up to eat up those savings. So far this year we have already had to replace our oven and hob so there will always be something and it’s best to plan conservatively and be pleasantly surprised.

This brings our expected annual spend for 2021 to just over 32k and our financial independence goal down to 800k from the more than a million that it would have been this time last year.