February 2020 Expense Report

Disclosure: This post might contain affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I’ll earn a commission, at no additional cost to you. Read my full disclosure here.

February was an interesting month. We had a lot of one-time costs that increased our spending by almost 60% compared to January 2020 and to February 2019. As part of these costs we also paid the security deposit for the 2nd child’s daycare, so we got a first taste of the increased expenses that will follow. As I’m writing this post, Coronavirus (COVID-19) has been declared a pandemic, so it will be interesting to compare this month’s expense report with the upcoming one from next month and see the differences.

Observations

1. Our total monthly expenses were $12.1k:
   1. This is almost 60% higher (i.e. $4.5k) than last month (January 2020 – $7.5k) or last year (February 2019 – $7.4k)
2. Most of this increase was due to one-time costs:
   1. New cell phone and DSLR camera: $1,921
   2. Security deposit for second child’s daycare: $1,055
   3. Auto maintenance (repaired the car brakes): $484
   4. Doctor visit for an uninsured relative: $352
3. The remaining part was due to:
   1. Discovering that I had not paid the last water/sewer bill, so I paid for 2 bills this time: $523
   2. Annual fee for the Alliant Credit Union credit card: $99
4. Preview for the increase in daycare costs, starting in August:
   1. My second child is starting daycare in August, which means that our daycare costs will more than double.
   2. Our expenses for the second half of the year will go above $10k/month. Not looking forward to those expense reports 🙁

Detailed breakdown

Category	Expenses	Comments
Daycare	$2,175	Includes $1,660 (monthly payment for 1 child) and $1,055 (security deposit for 2nd child)
Mortgage	$2,658	This is a 15-year mortgage @3%
Shopping	$2,378	New cell phone and DSLR camera ($1,921). The rest was mostly from Amazon (50%) and gifts
Groceries	$1,226	45% from Whole Foods, 35% Costco, 20% Aldi
Utilities	$813	Includes water/sewer (2 bills), electric bill, garbage, internet, alarm
Car maintenance	$484	Replaced brakes in one car
Healthcare	$428	$352 we one-time costs for visiting relative
Restaurants	$386	We went out 9 times. 50% of the amount is due to 2 of these times
Children’s activities	$341	Sports activities for children
Gas	$138	Most of it from Costco
Babysitting	$135
Fees	$134	Annual fees for credit card, late bank fees
Personal care	$130	Haircuts
Cell phone	$72	2 lines, unlimited plans
Tolls	$30
Entertainment	$28	Movies
Coffee	$24	Similar to last month
Parking	$9

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