2021 was a fantastic year for me, and might have been the best year of my life so far. There was one big change that impacted my spending this year, and that change was named Annie Peasley. I met her at a wedding in June, and by December we were engaged. We are planning on getting married summer of 2022, so there will be more changes to my yearly spending reports in the future.
All right, let’s jump into it — here is every dollar I spent in 2021:
Housing – $9,545 total // $795 per month (down from $9,659 in 2020, a $114 decrease)
Includes rent, utilities and any moving expenses. This was my third full year of living in downtown Dallas, and the second year of living in the same apartment, so housing expenses were about the same as last year. The ~$100 decrease was mostly due to a new roommate I got in March 2021, who was on board with not using heat/AC as much as possible, so our electricity bill was quite a bit lower than it had been previously.
My apartment complex did increase rent when I renewed my lease in September, but it was a ~2% increase (I negotiated it down from a higher amount, which consisted of sending one polite email that took less than 5 minutes to type out). This lease runs through September 2022, and my next home will likely be a 1 bedroom apartment with Annie after we get married.
Cell Phone – $100 total // $8 per month (down from $109 in 2020, a $9 decrease)
Another incredibly inexpensive year of phone service provided by the good folks at Tello. The $0 month in February was from one of my friends using my referral code to switch to Tello, and the account credit offset my entire phone bill for the month.
While my refurbished 2017 iPhone SE is still functional, it’s starting to slow down and have some issues after 4 – 5 years of use. I’ve also been shooting more YouTube videos lately (see Mexico City and Glacier NP trip videos if you’re interested in what I’m making), and would like to upgrade to a newer phone with a better camera. This will likely happen in 2022, so my phone spending should increase next year.
Groceries – $1,337 total // $111 per month (down from $1,420 in 2020, an $83 decrease)
My spending on groceries was close enough to last year that I’d call it virtually the same. The core of my diet has stayed consistent — rice, beans, lentils, veggies, nuts, peanut butter and coconut oil account for the vast majority of my calories. I did start buying more walnuts, pecans and cashews this year, which were more expensive than the almonds I’ve eaten more heavily in previous years.
It was interesting to see the variation from month to month on my grocery spending. The really high months (September/October), I was preparing meals for both myself and Annie, and stocking extra things like berries/other fresh fruit for Annie and my parents visiting Dallas. The really low months (June, November, and December), I was traveling a lot, so relying on restaurant meals or other people’s groceries for food (thank you other people!).
Dine Out – $432 total // $36 per month (up from $293 in 2020, a $139 increase)
This isn’t a complete picture of the amount of times I ate at restaurants this year — some of the restaurant spending was accounted for as Gifts, as I paid for meals for family/friends when I was out to eat with them. I think going forward, the Dine Out section will be whatever Annie and I eat at restaurants, and anyone’s meal we pay for will go into Gifts.
I expect this category to continue increasing in coming years as I continue to focus on spending more time socializing and connecting with people I love.
Travel – $3,988 total // $332 per month (up from $1,203 in 2020, a $2,785 increase)
2021 was a wild year of travel after very little traveling in 2020, and the over 3x increase in spending reflects that. I did not take a single flight for the first four months of the year, and then from May to December 2021 took 49 one way flights (roughly 1.5 flights per week, every week for the last 8 months of the year). Work travel ramped up quite a bit at first, then my personal travel increased with weddings, baptisms and trips to Mexico City and Glacier NP over the summer. I’d estimate that $1,500 – $2,000 of my yearly total was for personal vacations/events/family gatherings I was traveling to.
Then things got really crazy when I started visiting Annie in Phoenix consistently. For the last few months of the year, I was traveling during the week for work and then on the weekends to see Annie, which contributed to my low grocery expenses in November/December. I’d estimate that my Annie-related travel expenses totaled around $1,500 – $2,000 — well worth it! 🙂
Travel for work and to see family/friends will likely continue in 2022, however Annie has now moved to Dallas so I won’t be taking flights every 2 weeks to see her any more. I believe my travel spending will decrease in the next year, but I gained a few more family members to go visit in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota, so we’ll see!
Transportation – $228 // $19 per month (up from $69 in 2020, a $159 decrease)
The vast majority of my transportation consists of walking, with some biking thrown in there when visiting friends a little further away. I still don’t own a car, so most of my transportation spending is either related to getting to/from the airport (Uber/Lyft/train rides) or the occasional transportation to/from faraway social gatherings.
While the financial benefits of designing my life to function without car usage are obvious, there are tons of less quantifiable physical and mental benefits as well.
Annie does currently own a car, but she has operated without a car for a year while she was living in San Francisco and is open to going carless as a couple at some point. This will be an interesting category to watch in the next few years after we get married.
Gifts – $3,695 // $308 per month (I didn’t track Gifts as its own category in 2020, but I estimated it to be about $800 last year, so roughly a $2,900 increase)
Most of the gift spending this year was in November and December, which consisted of purchasing an engagement ring and picture frames, candles, roses, etc to propose to Annie. That said, even after ring/proposal spending, my gift spending almost doubled this year.
The non-engagement gift spending included lots of wedding-related things (bachelor parties, tux rentals, wedding gifts, etc.), aforementioned meals bought for people, charitable contributions and Christmas gifts.
Other – $1,126 // $94 per month (down from $1,692 in 2020, a $565 decrease, but it used to include gifts so it was probably around $900 without gifts last year)
Big miscellaneous expenses this year included clothes and tailoring (~$400), tickets to sporting events (~$100), household supplies (~$200, upgraded a few things before Annie visited Dallas the first time :P), stamps/envelopes/thank you cards (~$150) and assorted other random things. I also spent $50 on my first ever pedicure in July with my dear friend Mai, then immediately went backpacking for a week and destroyed the prettiest toenails I’ve ever had.
TOTAL – $20,450 // $1,704 per month (up from $14,445 in 2020, an $6,005 increase)
By far my record for most money spent in a year, beating out 2019’s previous high of $15k by ~33%. It was obvious where the increases came from — every category stayed within ~$100 of last year’s totals except Travel and Gifts, which made up nearly all of the $6,000 increase from 2020’s spending.
I predicted in my 2020 report that my spending would increase quite a bit this year, and I am happy it did. The additional spending led to countless new experiences, new connections, new friends and a year full of memories I’ll be looking back on fondly for decades to come.
This is the first time since starting these reports that I don’t think I’ll be able to accurately predict what my spending will look like in the coming year. Once Annie and I get married in the summer, we’ll combine our finances, and 2022’s spending report will be 50% solo Greg living and 50% Annie/Greg combined living. With that in mind, I’m going to estimate my/our spending next year will be something around $27,000 – $34,000. Stay tuned!
As always, if you have any questions about what I’m doing/not doing, if you want to know more or if there is anything I can help with, feel free to reach out at hashtagmoneygoals@gmail.com. Happy New Year!
Related reading:
My Personal Spending Report for 2020
My Personal Spending Report for 2019