August 2020 Expense Report

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August is the last month of the summer. It was also the last month of our self-inflicted semi-isolation. After 5 months of staying at home, limiting social gatherings, ordering everything online and keeping our children away from daycare, it was time for a change.

It was time to partially regain our previous lives. We decided that it’s time for the children to return to daycare. And we physically went to the grocery and retail stores. We also met with some other families (who were also semi-isolating like us).

Initially, it felt a little strange and risky. Being in the same grocery store isle like other people never felt more crowded. Seeing children play together in the daycare without wearing masks, felt quite unnerving. However, having calculated all the risks of getting infected with covid and the toll that this situation had taken on our lives, it was the best thing to do for us. Obviously, we still took precautions, wore masks everywhere and kept the social distances. It felt really good to be closer to normal.

Our expenses for the month increased to $9.1k. The biggest differences compared to last month were the daycare (for 2 children), our grocery and shopping expenses, as well as an one-time donation.

Observations

1. Our total expenses were $9.1k (compared to $5.8k for July)
   • The biggest contributors were the $2.2k for daycare, and $2.6k for shopping and groceries (compared to $2.1k for July)
   • Going forward, we expect the expenses to remain at this level.
2. Daycare is expensive: $2.2k for 2 children (and does not include the whole month of August)
   • One of the few benefits of this whole situation is that we had avoided daycare, which ends up being very costly. Going forward we’ll be paying around $2.5k/month for 2 children
3. Groceries expenses were more than 2.5x compared to last month
   • I’m not sure if this was because of more impulse buying when visiting the store or if it was because we had depleted our inventory. This is something to look closer going forward
4. We did a one-time donation of $600 to a child that needed to be hospitalized due to a rare decease
   • Regardless of our FIRE goals, it’s great to help others when they are in need. Our donation is just a tiny drop in the large number of expenses that need to be paid by the parents of that particular child. We wish them the best
5. Fixing electrical appliances is expensive: We spent $171 to fix our oven
   • Our oven broke down and we called a technician to take a look.
   • The visit cost $171 and it only included the inspection
   • The technician order additional parts and we’ll have to pay for a second visit, in order to have the oven fixed
   • In the meantime, we are using the bbq and the gas stovetop to cook everything. We found so many new uses for the bbq!

Detailed breakdown

Category	Expenses	Comments
Mortgage	$2,658	This is a 15-year mortgage @3%
Daycare	$2,229	2 children at daycare
Groceries	$1,818	Whole Foods (50%), Kroger (40%), Costco (10%)
Shopping	$809	Amazon (90%), Walgreens, Target
Gift	$597	One-time donation to a child with a rare medical condition
Utilities	$221	Electricity (50%), internet, garbage, alarm
Home maintenance	$171	One-time expense to repair our oven
Healthcare	$166	Children’s visits to the pediatrician
Personal care	$148	Wife’s haircuts
Gas	$128	Costco gas (50%), Kroger (30%), 76 (20%)
Cell phone	$67	2 lines with T-Mobile, unlimited plans. Received discount for not using much data
Other	$35	Random items
Children’s activities	$20	Online learning for children
Fees	$12	Random fees
Education	$3	Online learning

How to easily track your monthly expenses

This is the methodology that I use to monitor my monthly expenses. You can also do the same:

1. Create a free online account at Personal Capital
2. Link your accounts, so that you can track them in the Personal Capital dashboard
   • Bank accounts
   • Retirement accounts (401k, IRA, etc)
   • Credit cards
   • Investment accounts
3. At the end of each month, view the list of your Expenses (also found if you go to Banking -> Cash Flow -> Expense)
   • Go through each line one by one
   • Check if the “Category” of the expense is correct. If not, then move it to the correct category. You can also create your own categories
   • When you are done, you can view the graphs with the aggregate data and compare your expenses with last month