As my unemployment stretches into its third week, I've been taking some time to go through our finances with a fine-toothed comb, looking for ways to economize.
I decided it might be interesting to go back in time to the year that our combined incomes totalled what my husband's single income does now, and compare our expenses. I had to go all the way back to 2000 to make the comparison. Oh, what a different world it was back then! We did not have a cell phone (now we have three on what is probably the oldest family plan in the nation), our Internet connection was dialup (perish the thought!), I doubt we had even heard of TiVo (if it even existed), and our boys were 4 and 7 and didn't consume mass quantities of food at every meal.
I made an Excel spreadsheet and entered our monthly expenditures in a variety of categories (see below), and then found the monthly average for each category. I can sum it up in one word: Depressing!
Here's the summary of these expenses. Even if a bill was paid bimonthly (water), quarterly (trash, newspaper), or semiannually (car insurance), I figured what it would be per month. In future blog posts, I will break down each one, and discuss what, if anything, we can do to control these costs. The first number is 2000 and the second is 2008. Any 2008 amount that is actually lower will be highlighted in green.
Mortgage: $1,231.94/$1,315.10
Gas/Electric: $99.68/$167.69
Water: $56.83/$87.39
Trash: $15.70/$18.15
Cable TV (including TiVo): $29.98/$62.70
Land Line/Long Distance: $59.62/$30.69
Cell Phone: $0.00/$81.62
Newspaper: $9.19/$17.33 (as of 3/11/09 we are on a Sunday-only subscription for $5.98/month)
Internet: $21.95/$49.75
Groceries: $437.40/$778.68
Gasoline: $63.01/$156.64
Auto Insurance: $75.12/$113.18
Life Insurance: $61.67/$0.00
Cash for Allowances: $270.83/$360.00
Total: $2,432.90/$3,238.93
