Ways and Means: 2023 Recap

We’re so close to catching up! I write this, once again, in February 2024, but that means we’re just one year away from the present day in blog world. One of my resolutions for 2024 is to cut down on my cute spending. That literally means stop buying “cute” things on instinct. Instead I’m going to start a photo album of things I wanted to buy but didn’t. This will surely preserve lots of money. Oh and in 2024 I also have the resolution to “make some money.” How I’ll do that? I don’t know yet! But let’s see how I do later. For now, we rewind the clock back to 2023…

Once again, it was a quiet year for the most part, but punctuated by many trips to Los Angeles as I helped to resettle my friend. Starting in April or so, I even took some jaunts up there myself to hang out. And then once September hit, the traveling was on, as I went to San Franciso for a fortieth birthday, Colorado for a wedding, New York for New York, and then finally back to my beloved Taiwan from mid-November and on. Let’s take a look!

• Jan: $2,250
• Feb: $1,750
• Mar: $2,250
• Apr: $3,250
• May: $3,250
• Jun: $3,000
• Jul: $2,750
• Aug: $2,250
• Sep: $3,500
• Oct: $5,000
• Nov: $3,250
• Dec: $2,500

I averaged $2,900 variable expenses a month, which was slightly lower than 2022. There were some sterling months as well, with February coming in under two thousand dollars, which hasn’t happened in awhile I don’t think. Aside from a spike in October—certainly New York related—most of my monthly variable expenditures was right around $2,500 to $3,000. Not bad! Just a nice and even distribution.

• 🥐 Food: $13,500
• 🪂 Play: $9,000
• 🏏 Shopping: $8,000
• ✈️ Transportation: $3,500

Once again food dropped lower when compared to the previous year, albeit by just a smidge. Can I get this food number under $1000 a month? Maybe! And for the first time ever, I think, “play” overtook “shopping,” which makes no sense because I don’t recall what I spent so much money on playing! Although I have my suspicions that the uptick is video game related. We’ll find out in tags.

In sum, for 2023, it was $35k in variable expenses, $35k fixed (while still accounting for $2k in mortgage, which I’ll wipe next year), and a mere $8k in annual expenses. That’s $78,000 on the year and a nifty $101.5k lifestyle. Taking away the mortgage stuff, that would translate to $54k pre-tax and $70k afterwards. So in theory I need to make say, $75,000 in 2024 to break even? Is that how balancing the checkbook works?

There were the usual high amount of big ticket items this year. I’m gonna delve a little deeper into “shopping” since I did a real in-depth analysis of what I bought in 2023. For now, suffice to say that “big ticket items” for the year included paying for LOL coaching for my teams, a new television for my mom’s apartment in Taipei, new tires, a few concerts and etc. Actually I have a handy list so I’ll just put it below.

• Here Lies Love, musical ($400)
• Gracie Abrams, concert ($300)
• Sleep No More ($300)
• Taylor Swift, birthday party ($250)
• 143 SoSuperSam, party ($150)
• SD Wave, sports game ($150)
• Yaeji, concert ($100)
• Duplex, singing ($200)
• Club Nebula, party ($200, twice)
• Karaoke, singing ($150)
• Ultra EDM, party ($125)

Actually the trusty Lexus was great this year, as those replacement tires was the only thing I spent money on. Maybe going over 200k miles is making it purr like a kitten!

I did not fly that often in 2023, and that is reflected in the mere $600 spent in “flights.” Most of that was actually on a change fee, and just a few taxis to the airport and back. If you take a taxi to JFK and back, that’s an additional $200 to get to wherever you’re going in New York. Not one real flight was paid for still in 2023, but I believe my credit card points are about finished.

As for “accommodations,” the total was $1,500 and half of that was for an Airbnb in Sonoma and then the other half for lodging in Colorado. We were grateful to have free housing in New York for our stay. There was a newly enforced Airbnb crackdown in New York just as we went, and that made renting an apartment impossible. Thank you friends!

There was also two Uber rides from LA to SD and back, on separate occasions as the train was down. And frankly, $150 or so from LA to SD in an Uber was cheaper than I expected.

And finally my good old house. Most of the year it was great, as there was just a tub re-caulking and then some door and shower stuff, which totaled about two hundred dollars. However, right as I left in November, the sprinklers in the front yard blew up and there was a lot spent on fixing it. How much I don’t know because my mom paid for it. Many hundreds at least, if not a thousand. And due to that leakage, there’s also an unknown water bill that has yet to be accounted for. Too little water is just as bad as too much apparently!

The one other HUGE expense this year was my teeth. From Jan until November, I was doing a full process to get implants in to replace my bridge. The total bill came out to around $12k, and I have no real dental so my mom had to help pay for that. You know, I’m still only semi-adulting, right? It’s a small price to pay—or not pay, in my case—for twenty-plus years of free dental work from my dad’s best friend. Thank you Dr. Charles, for your many many free gifts.

As for the trips this year, I only compiled the two weeks in New York and then the forty days in Taiwan—both of which came with free lodging. New York cost four thousand dollars, at about $280 per day, while Taipei was the same total, but at $85 a day. That’s free flights and room and board mind you!

To break down shopping, let’s start with clothing, which I have a tag for. It was $1,200 total, and that was about twenty-five shopping times. Twice a month? No wait, that’s twenty-five items. Included are a scarf I got at the Guggenheim gift shop ($150) that I had to have, and then $100 for a denim jacket from Dresscue that quickly became my new go-to jacket. Both are great buys, even if the scarf has yet to be used because once again I can’t bear to get it dirty. George and I both have this issue apparently, wearing things that cost over a hundred dollars?

Also, once again, my hopes for a Celtic championship suckered me into buying some Celtics stuff. This time Eastern Conference title T-shirts and gear at the cost of ninety dollars. The emotional damage from losing was far far greater though. Immeasurable!

There was a $350 splurge at the Herschel warehouse sale—the one expenditure I truly regret. Friends were in town for a Memorial Day gathering and I wanted us to all learn New Jeans’ OMG routine, so I hired a teacher for $250. And then throw in a new zoo pass and that covers events I think.

I purchased sixty books this year, at about twenty dollars each, totaling $1,200 or so. That’s in line with my usual expenditure on books.

“Games” came out to be about $1000, which is either board or video games, such as Diablo 4, the new Street Fighter, etc. and two Miyoo Mini Plus machines ($90 each) for handheld retro gaming—one was for a friend. I also separated out tags for League of Legends and my new addiction: Marvel Snap. Is it good to pay for cosmetics for two games? Nope! But I think LOL will be winding down. Having said that, three thousand dollars was still spent on LOL in 2023, and then about a thousand on Snap. We’ll be replacing Snap with LOL next year, which should be cheaper. I don’t want to scare you, but in sum, I’ve spent about $10k on LOL from 2021-2023, which works out to about $250 a month.

Oh yeah, I also paid up through 2026 for my fantasy basketball league. Which cost $300. And I also got some electronics this year. An additional full set of N64 stuff for The New Tetris—which made a huge comeback in my life after staying dormant for twenty years. There was about a month there where we all got re-hooked back on Tetris. It’s still the greatest game ever.

Other beep beep boop boop things was an iPad Air and a gaming PC laptop, both for around $1000. Both were huge upgrades but also, in theory, not entirely necessary. Not like the $300 I spent on backpacks in New York, those were necessary. I found two Lefrik backpacks I loved at some store in Cobble Hill and then two days later found a Bellroy one in Williamsburg for $175 that I had to have. I’m still allowed to buy backpacks moving forward I think, just no more cute things. Luckily my shopping in Taipei will be accounted for in 2024.

The most important thing I’m doing for next year is splitting out “shopping” and “hobbies,” because all this gaming is bloating my “shopping” category.

Overall, dining out, shared or otherwise, is still about eighteen percent of all the variable money I spent. That’s one-fifth of my money going to food! Can we get that to fifteen percent, ten? Haha.

Taxis were huge in 2023, but I think that’s from New York and Taiwan stuff, I assume. Oh yep, I spent $500 on Ubers in Taiwan for just December, as I kind of just taxi everywhere. The difference is made up for in the cheap food I think.

The other outlier was a $1,800 number next to “alcohol.” I forgot to mention that starting in April, I started going out again a lot. In San Diego, in Los Angeles, wherever I was. So I guess going out dancing equals money spent on drinks! That alcohol number includes $450 in September and $700 in October. Aside from those two, all as normal! If more in “shopping” this past year, but I delved into that already.

For tags, I took out “gifts relationship,” “popcorn,” and “karaoke.” Multiple tags such as “travel” was unused so I’m adjusting those out. Things to answer for next year is how to categorize movies: rentals, in theater, etc.

Alrighty, we’re finally caught up and headed toward 2024 with energy and a possible revamp of tracking. Will there be some actual budgeting too? Who knows!