biggest spend category in 2014?

[donthasslethehoff]

If you take out your mortgage/rent AND daycare, what was your biggest spend category in 2014? I just downloaded all of our transactions in Mint, and I am dying at the amount we spent on 'dining out/booze' in 2014 . I also need to quit my morning dunkin' donuts iced tea obsession.

On the flip side, we had a ton of expenses in 2014 that I don't see happening in 2015. We had a ton of weddings to go to, so a lot of gifts, hotel stays, travel expense, and we took a pretty nice vacation that won't happen in 2015.

Edited to exclude day care costs.

[hamster]

I'm assuming eating out

[oreos]

After rent, auto and transport (being car payments, gas, public transit passes) was my household's second biggest expense. Food and dining wasn't too far behind.

I was actually expecting food and dining to be more, although I guess this year's auto expense included a new-to-us car purchase.

[donthasslethehoff]

Dec 30, 2014 9:19:40 GMT -5 @starry said:

Daycare

Followed closely by travel

Crap - I should've excluded day care as well.

[my3bears]

Ugh, medical bills. 

Now have a dedicated emergency fund just for that. Hoping to not need it anytime soon. Good thoughts for 2015!

[tacosforlife]

Student loans, without a doubt. My payment changed partway through the year, so I'm not sure exactly how much we spent on them. I'm not sure I want to know.

Food/booze would definitely be a close second (revised...food/booze is definitely second, but it's not close). I have big plans to reign that in for 2015, for both health and money reasons.

[spunkarella]

Travel. It was shockingly close to our mortgage total.

:/ but It was a fun year.

[Deleted]

Food, and I don't even buy booze.

[ddi741]

After 'Home'(mortgages (primary & rental), Home Improvement etc) our biggest category is food & dining

[lizrd7579]

Auto/Transport...DH bought a car this year, so we had that plus gas, and new brakes and tires for my car.

[Emerald1486]

Bills and Utilities followed by Gas

[partiallysunny]

Food

[sicilygirl]

Groceries/Dining Out/Alcohol was ours too. This also includes household goods, and averages right around $1,000/month. After that it would be auto expenses (one car payment and lots of gas because I commute), then travel.

[v]

I would guess dining/drinking out, followed by travel, but those might be reversed.

[HoneySpider]

I assume moving and medical bills, both were large sums of money for us this year

ETA: Well nevermind, somehow I forgot we went to Italy this year. So travel is at the top. 

[gt7301b]

Travel

[lmdbww]

Dec 30, 2014 9:25:25 GMT -5 my3bears said:

Ugh, medical bills. 

Us, too.  DD and DH are on the same plan through his work and he has coinsurance so until they each meet $500, we pay 80%. DH has a blood disorder and needs to go to the doc every 3 weeks.

Thankfully my plan changed this year to a 0 Deductible plan and all labs are covered so that's huge for me. I pretty much avoided going to the doctor because of my old plan (even though I needed to go really badly).

[arch01]

car payments

[mrshandy]

I think it would probably be groceries, but student loans is a close second.

[UnderProtest]

Food/dining out without a question. Hopefully travel will increase next year to outweigh that. Food seems like such a boring thing to be spending so much money on.

[trissie18]

Groceries - I really need to buckle down on this category this year.

[SJ]

These are our largest categories for 2014 (in order):

Quarterly Tax Estimates
Rent
Charitable Giving
Food
Kids (this includes daycare though)
Furnishings (lots of redecorating this year)
Health & Medical (includes health insurance)

Yikes. I am pleasantly surprised that Charitable Giving is at the top though.

[my3bears]

Dec 30, 2014 9:51:00 GMT -5 lmdbww said:

Dec 30, 2014 9:25:25 GMT -5 my3bears said:

Ugh, medical bills. 

Us, too.  DD and DH are on the same plan through his work and he has coinsurance so until they each meet $500, we pay 80%. DH has a blood disorder and needs to go to the doc every 3 weeks.

Thankfully my plan changed this year to a 0 Deductible plan and all labs are covered so that's huge for me. I pretty much avoided going to the doctor because of my old plan (even though I needed to go really badly).

Yep. DH decided to go and have a stroke at the end of 2013 while we were on a high deductible plan. Alllll those medical bills came in early 2014 and beyond, and even though we switched to his work plan which only had an in-network deductible of $1k, he still needed medical care in the first half of 2014 so we had to pay out of pocket till that was maxed out. Plus some doctors we wanted to stay with were out of network, or don't take insurance at all, hence the  .

0 deductible and labs covered is amazing! Are your DH and DD switching to your plan now? Good thoughts for a healthy 2015!

[hopenotlost]

Is "useless shit" a category? Ugh.

[lmdbww]

Dec 30, 2014 10:02:51 GMT -5 my3bears said:

Dec 30, 2014 9:51:00 GMT -5 lmdbww said:

Us, too.  DD and DH are on the same plan through his work and he has coinsurance so until they each meet $500, we pay 80%. DH has a blood disorder and needs to go to the doc every 3 weeks.

Thankfully my plan changed this year to a 0 Deductible plan and all labs are covered so that's huge for me. I pretty much avoided going to the doctor because of my old plan (even though I needed to go really badly).

Yep. DH decided to go and have a stroke at the end of 2013 while we were on a high deductible plan. Alllll those medical bills came in early 2014 and beyond, and even though we switched to his work plan which only had an in-network deductible of $1k, he still needed medical care in the first half of 2014 so we had to pay out of pocket till that was maxed out. Plus some doctors we wanted to stay with were out of network, or don't take insurance at all, hence the  .

0 deductible and labs covered is amazing! Are your DH and DD switching to your plan now? Good thoughts for a healthy 2015!

I've always kept mine separate because my premium is completely covered as part of my benefit package. If I added them on it would cost over $1000/month out of my check (whereas, even though bills suck, I think his payroll deduction for them to stay on his plan is only like $20/month or something super cheap).

Ugh, Poor DH! I hope he's feeling better! Healthy thoughts to you, also!

[Susie]

Taking out mortgage + daycare seems kind of arbitrary. 

Student loans are my biggest, whether you take the mortgage out or not.  (We don't have kids in daycare.)

[shortstax]

Groceries (approx $400/mo)

[doobeedoo]

Even including mortgage and daycare (when we had daycare costs), they were never our highest amounts, sadly.  We spend a lot on food/booze/dining out and travel.  Last year travel may have won.

[heyrebekah]

Probably eating out. I'm definitely not going to go look up the real numbers, lol.

[whitemerlot]

Groceries