What I Spent In 2022

Happy New Year – 2022 is in the books and it’s time for my annual spending post.  I’ve never budgeted in my life, so when I did my first spending post for the year 2020 it was almost entirely done out of curiosity.  As we all know 2020 was the year covid struck and most of us had our spending habits drastically changed. 

I wanted to know how much I spent that year figuring it was super low.  Turns out it was pretty low by most American standards, but not as low as I had imagined.  I did another post for 2021 and my spending increased slightly, but 2021 was still a year heavily altered by covid.  If you don’t want to open those two posts, here are my numbers for those years:

• 2020 – $34,763
• 2021 – $36,478 

Being that 2022 saw covid fade further into the background I was really curious if things went up further.  So let’s get to it.

 

The Books

Virtually all my spending goes on two credit cards so getting my total isn’t too hard.  The two cards do categorize things differently and being that I buy some food items from Amazon which do not get put in a “grocery” category on the card report this did take a bit of work. 

Unlike some others out there who do long spending posts and list things out to the gnats ass, I keep it short and sweet.  Here’s my main categories of spending and the damage for 2022:

 

My total of $38,683 is $2,205 higher than my total for 2021 for an increase of 6%.  And it’s 11.3% more than I spent in 2020.  But from 2021 – 2022 my spending increased less than the 8 – 9% that inflation has been hovering around, so that’s good. 

 

Breakin’ It Down

As in the past few years my 3 biggest expenses were housing, health insurance, and food.  This year however food passed health insurance and was #2 where in 2020 and 2021 it was third.  Inflation has seemingly hit food the hardest, and on top of that I have also been more selective about quality across the board.  If you want to read about my diet I posted about that and not too much has changed from that post. 

In other categories, my utilities went down a bit, but my car insurance, health insurance, and internet all went up.  And then there’s that gas bill.  While $672 is a pittance compared to what most Americans spend on gas annually, it’s a lot for me. 

The main reason is that I drove a lot more in 2022, and gas prices were high as well.  I drove almost 5000 miles in 2022, more than double the two previous years.  But I still rode my bike more miles than I drove! 

My mortgage appears to have gone up but I’m locked in a 30-year fixed rate.  The number above includes my escrow which has property taxes and insurance included.  And since the value of my home continues to increase, my property taxes do as well.

 

Vehicle Ownership…. Ugh

I need a car but wish I didn’t.  In 2022 I got my front brakes done and got new tires.  Those two things totaled well over a thousand smackers.  In March of last year I wrote about my tire conundrum at the end of this post.  In the end I bit the bullet and bought them a bit early in fear that prices would continue to rise. 

As mentioned my main vehicle is my bike, or my bikes since I have a few.  These vehicles have maintenance costs too but since they’re fun vehicles and keep me healthy it’s more than worth it.  My big bike expense for 2022 was a new set of wheels for my main racing bike.  Those set me back $480 even though they were $550 dollar wheels and I told that story in a post. 

I also did a few charity rides and races and those cost money, but again – more than worth it.

 

That ‘Other’ Category, What’re You Hiding Dave?

In the chart above there’s a big “other” category that totaled $5688.  What’s that all about? 

As mentioned above I don’t do a gnats ass breakdown, so I put miscellaneous expenses and one time special things in that bucket.  Besides the two big vehicle bills mentioned above various memberships and annual fees are in that category such as my Amazon Prime subscription, my annual pass to the National Parks, my membership fee for the American Alpine club, and my charity donations. 

Other items include my music purchases (I still buy .mp3’s, read why here), running shoes, and other sundries such as vitamin supplements and some rock climbing gear.

I also did a few DIY home improvement projects including a nice set of shelves in my basement, so there was some Home Depot damage in that category.   

 

Up And Up

So my annual spending seems to be steadily rising.  I’m good with that.  Covid definitely kept my 2020 and 2021 numbers lower, and I feel my 2022 total is still a bit low and somewhat still affected by covid.  I think my “normal” spending is probably in the $40 – $45k range annually, and by all appearances I’m headed that way this year. 

I did a lot of cool road trips in 2022 including a great climbing trip in New England, but I haven’t done any big international trips since covid.  To be honest part of me just doesn’t want to deal with the hassle, and I’ve had a few friends lose pretty big sums of money due to changing covid rules in foreign countries. 

I’ve been to all seven continents and over 40 countries so I’ve gotten around, and I’m now enjoying a phase of rediscovering the gems of good ole ‘murica.  But my passport will no doubt be used again, many times. 

Lastly as I’m sure regular readers might be sick of hearing, my graphic arts business covers a good chunk of my annual expenses.  To find out how that went in 2022 you’ll have to stay tuned.