Here’s every dollar we spent in 2023 (our first full year of being married):
Housing – $24,590 total // $2,049 per month // $1,025 pppm1 (up from $14,990 in 2022, a $9,600 increase)
We lived in Denver from January to June, and Minneapolis from June through December. This figure includes rent, utilities, moving expenses, parking ($40/month in Denver, but $175/month in Minneapolis – yikes!) and other random fees. The increase in December was a penalty to break our lease since we are buying a house in 2024. Without that penalty, our housing would have been ~$3k less for the year.
The overall cost of living is less in Minneapolis than Denver at the moment, and rent is a big part of that. Our apartment is comparable to the one in Denver (same size, beds/baths, etc) but is newer and has a washer/dryer in unit.
Cell Phone – $335 total // $28 per month // $14 pppm (down from $705 in 2022, a $370 decrease)
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 for July onward.
Annie continues to use a 5 year old iPhone X, while I upgraded to an iPhone 13 mini last year (which was why last year was higher). Annie might be due for a newer phone this year, but I said the same thing last year and it didn’t happen so we’ll see!
Groceries – $5,328 total // $444 per month // $222 pppm (up from $3,665 in 2022, a $1,663 increase)
There are two distinct periods in our food spending this year:
- April to June – $600/month average. We found out we were unexpectedly pregnant in April. Annie had some gnarly morning sickness/nausea that led her to only wanting to eat certain things, and I made multiple trips a week to our neighborhood Whole Foods to buy/cook whatever she was feeling like that day. We unfortunately had a miscarriage in late June, so the pregnancy-fueled grocery boom came to an end.
- Rest of the year – $390/month average. This is more representative of our typical food expenses in a month.
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. One wonderful thing about the move to Minneapolis has been access to 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.
Dine Out – $1,469 total // $122 per month // $61 pppm (up from $952 in 2022, a $517 increase)
~50% date nights and ~50% meals with family/friends. This spending category is a completely social one – the amount we spent on restaurant meals because we didn’t want to cook or just wanted to have something different was $0.
Travel & Entertainment – $3,262 total // $272 per month // $136 pppm (down from $3,736 in 2022, a $474 decrease)
Last year was over 50% snowboarding-related expenses. This year’s travel included a few more snowboarding trips, a trip to Dallas/SD over Easter weekend, a week-long road trip in which we saw 8 national parks in April, an AirBNB cabin vacation with the Peasley family in September, a North Shore Lake Superior camping trip in September, and Portland/Denver in October to visit our friends.
We also had some smaller trips here and there to visit family/friends, went to a couple concerts and attended a handful of professional sporting events in both Denver and Minneapolis.
Transportation – $3,510 total // $292 per month // $146 pppm (up from $3,341 in 2022, a $168 increase)
Patty the Nissan Pathfinder put in another stellar year of duty, carrying us up/down mountains for snowboarding, visiting 8 national parks, hauling a Uhaul with all of our possessions from Denver to Minneapolis, and serving as our sleeping quarters on a couple of camping trips.
That said, I still cringe a little bit every time I see how much we pay for owning a car. While it’s very convenient, I was spending ~$200 a YEAR on transportation prior to owning a car. Now that’s what we pay for 1 month to park Patty in our parking garage in downtown Minneapolis (which isn’t included in this transportation cost btw, if it was it would be well over $4,000).
Gifts – $ 1,468 total // $122 per month // $61 pppm (up from $1,119 in 2022, a $349 increase)
Largely wedding gifts, paying for friends/family’s meals while at restaurants, and other random donations. We did not buy any Christmas gifts this year, as both of our families are focusing more on experiences together rather than material gift-giving amongst adults.
Other – $4,236 total // $353 per month // $176 pppm (up from $2,064 in 2022, a $2,172 increase)
This category had by far the biggest % increase since last year. Looking at my notes, it was ~$700-800ish of clothing, ~$1,000ish of health-related items (exercise equipment, vitamins/supplements, pregnancy appointments), ~$500ish of housing supplies, and an assortment of other things including a $40 speeding ticket Annie got in Denver which claims funniest transaction of the year.
TOTAL – $44,198 total // $3,683 per month // $1,842 pppm (up from $30,573 in 2022, a $13,625 increase)
The $14k increase this year mainly came from housing (+$10k), food (+$2k) and other expenses (+$2k). I boldly predicted that our pppm cost would decrease in 2023, and was wrong – although without breaking our lease it would have been within $30 of last year. I also predicted that our spending would land between $35-38k this year, and was wrong again there.
There were a lot of things we didn’t expect this year (pregnancy and house purchase being the big 2), that made for some higher-than-expected spending, but living below our means allows us the flexibility to navigate unexpected situations and spend more when we need or want to.
Spending $44k in a year seems ridiculously high (after all, I did spend $8.7k in the entire year of 2017), but at $22k per person, we are just barely spending more than a full-time minimum wage earner makes in Minnesota ($21k/year at $10.59/hour in 2023).
If you have any questions, if you 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 individuals in our household which was 2 for the entire year)
Past years reports:
2022 Spending Report
2021 Spending Report
2020 Spending Report
2019 Spending Report
2018 Spending Report
2017 Spending Report