Our family had 2 big developments last year. First, we bought a house and completed some major renovations. Second, we became pregnant and welcomed our son Theo to the world in November.
Here’s every dollar we spent in 2024:
Housing – $145,281 total // $12,107 per month // $6,053 pppm1 (up from $24,590 in 2023, a $120,691 increase)
Big yikes. We lived in Minneapolis for the first 12 days of 2024, and closed on our house and moved to Mora January 12th. This $145k is made up of:
$19k mortgage (principal and interest), property taxes, insurance
$4k utilities (electric, water, gas, trash, internet) and routine maintenance
$114k of renovations/remodeling
Thankfully only the first two lines totaling ~$23k will continue in 2025, so our housing expenses will not continue to be six figures.
The renovations we completed included removing one wall, replacing 9 windows, 7 exterior doors, 9 interior doors, installing 2 new windows that didn’t exist before, excavating and finishing a 400 sq ft crawl space into 2 bedrooms and a bathroom, framing/drywalling the entire basement, and a new combination boiler/water heater. We accomplished all of this as cost effectively as possible (we’d like to think), with the help of our rockstar neighbor Rus, some small town connections, and plenty of pro bono work from our family. And we still spent over $100k in about 10 months.
One could argue that most (or all) of that spending is now equity in our house, but in my opinion it’s still money out the door that is now tied up somewhere where we can’t easily invest it in something like index funds.
I expect our housing spending to be much, much less in 2025.
Cell Phone – $456 total // $38 per month // $19 pppm (up from $335 in 2023, a $121 increase)
This includes 2 cell phone plans for $10/month with 2GB of data each (from our friends at Tello), as well as a Spotify Premium Duo subscription at ~$16/month through June, and $19/month July onward.
Annie continues to use a 6 year old iPhone X, and I’ve said she might be due for a new phone for the last couple of years and it hasn’t happened (one of the many reasons my wife is an absolute legend). My secondhand iPhone 13 mini has been working great for 2 years, and shows no signs of stopping any time soon.
Groceries – $6,523 total // $544 per month // $272 pppm (up from $5,328 in 2023, a $1,195 increase)
We continue to eat as healthy as we can, buying 95%+ organic food, healthy whole ingredients, and making the vast majority of our food at home. We continue to frequent Mike’s Discount Foods, which has tons of healthy, organic options for a fraction of the price that we would pay at Whole Foods or Natural Grocers.
We also purchased a deep freezer in November, which led to an increase in grocery spending in November and December as we stocked up on some basic supplies to have on hand. $500/month is a lot for us, and I expect this amount to be less in 2025.
Dine Out – $1,072 total // $89 per month // $45 pppm (down from $1,469 in 2023, a $397 decrease)
As in previous years, eating out is a social activity for us – all of our restaurant experiences were either dates or meetups with friends/family. I’d hypothesize that the decrease from last year was due to 1) living in a small town with less restaurants to choose from and less expensive restaurants than the major metro areas we’ve lived previously and 2) being busy with house remodeling, so less time to spend going out to eat.
Travel & Entertainment – $3,001 total // $250 per month // $125 pppm (down from $3,262 in 2023, a $261 decrease)
This category has declined the last 2 years, but only slightly. Travel this year included multiple road trips to North Dakota and South Dakota to visit our family, a trip to Austin/Dallas, TX partially for work and partially to see friends, flights to Washington DC and Denver to visit friends in July, a family vacation in La Crosse, WI, and our annual Friendsgiving gathering in Denver in October.
Transportation – $1,465 total // $122 per month // $61 pppm (down from $3,510 in 2023, a $2,045 decrease)
Patty the 2011 Nissan Pathfinder keeps chugging along with over 160k miles on the odometer, serving our one-car household well. This category includes all gas, insurance, and any other car-related expenses like oil changes, repairs, etc. This is the first year that we haven’t had any major repairs to complete, which is why the total is much lower than previous years. We’ve considered upgrading to a newer, more efficient vehicle, but it’s hard to justify when Patty is safely getting us from A to B, and only costs $100ish a month to own and operate.
Gifts – $ 2,683 total // $224 per month // $112 pppm (up from $1,468 in 2023, a $1,215 increase)
Mostly wedding gifts, paying for friends/family’s meals while at restaurants, supporting friends’ causes, and other random donations. This category largely follows the trend of the amount of weddings we attend or are in the bridal party for, and 2024 was a relatively busy wedding year for us.
Child #1 – $4,749 total // $396 per month // N/A pppm2
New category for the year! I had originally categorized all pregnancy/child costs as “Other”, but both Annie and I are curious as to how much it costs to birth/raise a child. So, Theo gets his own category.
Expenses include pregnancy appointments, prenatal vitamins, a tongue tie procedure post-birth, postpartum supplies for Annie, and essentials like clothes, diapers, bottles and wipes. Our spending was heavily subsidized by many gifts and hand-me-downs from family and friends (thank you!).
There are many indirect costs that aren’t captured here (i.e. increased housing spending, getting an Airbnb for Friendsgiving when we would typically stay with friends, the unimaginable toll of lost sleep, etc.), but this should give us a rough idea of how much it costs to have a kid. Promise I won’t hold this over you in 20 years, Theo.
Other – $8,803 total // $734 per month // $367 pppm (up from $4,236 in 2023, a $4,568 increase)
LOTS of Amazon orders and Target/Walmart runs for household items such as couches, rugs, plants, mirrors, etc. Housing-related spending made up the majority of the spending in this category, with the balance supplied by skincare/haircare products, clothes (maternity, nursing bras, Theo clothes, thrifting), and supplements/vitamins. I expect (and hope!) this category will decrease significantly in 2025 as we have most household goods we need.
Silliest transaction of the year goes not to an expense, but to an income stream. I received a bribe in the form of a $0.25 Venmo payment from my friend Mai to vote for her house as having the best Christmas lights in her neighborhood. Thanks Mai!
TOTAL – $174,034 total // $14,503 per month // $7,251 pppm (up from $44,198 in 2023, a $129,836 increase)
The $130k increase this year mainly came from housing (+$121k), Child #1 (+$5k) and Other (+$5k), offset by less Transportation, Travel and Dining Out (-$3k).
My dear reader, spending that much was painful for me. And slightly embarrassing to have to admit to you. $174k is more than my family and I have spent in the previous 7 years combined (~$21k per year over from ’17 – ’23). The $39k we spent in the month of November alone was more than three entire years of my life in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
That said, if we use last year’s housing spending (~$25k) and remove all child-related expenses, the total ends up being $48k for the year (only $4k more than last year), or roughly $2k pppm which seems much more reasonable. So that might be more in line with what to expect in 2025, something like $40-50k spent in the year.
We are also lucky to have that much money to spend, and feel thankful for years of living well below our means to allow us to complete some ambitious home renovations, have a child, and not worry about how to pay for it all. My philosophy has always been that money is a tool, and can be effectively used to get the most satisfaction out of life. I might expand on this in a future post, I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently.
Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, want to know more, or if there is anything I can help with, feel free to send me an email at hashtagmoneygoals@gmail.com. Happy New Year!
1Per person per month (monthly cost divided by number of adults in our household which was 2 for the entire year. Theo doesn’t count yet)
2Since this is all Theo costs, the average is the same as the per-person-per-month cost since it is only one person
Past years reports:
2023 Spending Report
2022 Spending Report
2021 Spending Report
2020 Spending Report
2019 Spending Report
2018 Spending Report
2017 Spending Report