Ways and Means: 2025 Recap

Life Summary

2025 was a year of big change in my financial life. For one, I vowed to shop less, to buy less, and really, to expend less. Also, I got married! With that marriage came shared bills and shared expenses across the board, and toward that end we opened a joint checkings account about a year ago.

That means my overall numbers are slashed from 2024, however I’m trying to figure out how to adjust and reflect my individual and shared expense sheets to still come up with my normal expenditure numbers. On with the show!

Month by Month Breakdown

• Jan: $1,500
• Feb: $1,100
• Mar: $1,700
• Apr: $2,000 (Offset -$1000)
• May: $1,300 (Offset -$1000)
• Jun: $1,500
• Jul: $1,000
• Aug: $1,800
• Sep: $1,000
• Oct: $1,300
• Nov: $1,100
• Dec: $1,000

Total Variable Expense: $16,500

Annual Expenses: $21,000

Total Variable + Annual Expenses: $37,500

Variable Expenses

I averaged about $1,350 in monthly variable expenses in 2025, which sounds much lower than last year’s $2,600, but that then has to account for how much Slushy and I spent jointly.

Looking at our new shared expenses sheet, that comes out to roughly $800 per month each—which included bills though and other fixed expenses. Cleaning service, water, gas/electric, and internet cost $600 a month, give or take, but those were filed under fixed expenses. Taking out bills then, we shared about $500 worth of expenses a month each.

So, using that +$500 number, if we add it back in to my 2025 monthly variable, I averaged about $1,850 per month on variable expenses. That’s not too bad, and a big decrease overall from 2024!

Big Six Categories

Individual

• Food: $6,500
• Shopping: $5,500
• Play: $3,000
• Transportation: $2,300
• Hobbies: $1,000
• House: $500

For 2025, I expanded the big four categories to include hobbies and house. I also need to add in shared expenses for these categories, which I’ll do below.

Shared Expenses

• Food: $7,000
• Shopping: $400
• Play: $1,000
• Transportation: $400
• Hobbies: $0
• House: $1000

If we halve those amounts to account for my half, then I actually spent:

Individual + Shared

• Food: $6,500 + 3,000
• Shopping: $5,500 + $200
• Play: $3,000 + $500
• Transportation: $2,300 + $200
• Hobbies: $1,000 + $0
• House: $500 + $500

Note I’m showing the math for this year, but in the future I’ll probably just combine them as we go.

Individual + Shared, Clean

• 🥐 Food: $9,500
• 🏏 Shopping: $5,700
• 🪂 Play: $3,500
• ✈️ Transportation: $2,500
• 🎲 Hobbies: $1,000
• 🏠 House: $1,000

So, compared to last year, I dropped my food by a whole lot, slashed my shopping by half, and also played less, hobby-ed way less, and spent one thousand dollars less on transportation. In fact, I went from $38,000 spent on these six categories in 2024 to $23,200 total in 2025. 

What a savings! I was down in every category except Annual actually.

In all, it was $23,00 in variable expenses, $4,500 in fixed, $10,000 shared expenses, and $14,000 in annual expenses. Total: $51,000 for 2025.  So times 1.3x for presumptive taxes, I’m living a $66,000 lifestyle? Does that sound right?

Also caveat: I need to note that I do not pay for property tax, a mortgage, health insurance, or car insurance, so that’s a hefty bill that is paid elsewhere.

What was in that huge Annual number?

Our Asia trip encompassed some of it, as there were flights, accommodations, and extra traveling fun stuff. It was about $5,700 total for the Asia trip. (We spent $18,500 total on the trip, but that’s a post for another time.)

Nothing went wrong with the house this year, minus a minor door thing ($300), but my car brakes did need fixing, which was $850 spent on car maintenance.

And $4,000 in medical, which was a huge outlier because I’d not really been to the doctor in years. But this past year, I went a lot to get everything checked up, highlighted by my first colonoscopy ($750) and a whole slew of testing.

Big Ticket Items

Nothing to really write home about, minus two tattoos I got in Asia, totaling $700. Aside from that, I put about $300 into ukuleles and equipment, as my mom, Slushy, and I are starting a music ensemble. Slushy paid for two of the ukuleles though, otherwise that number would’ve been $500.

Oh, my wedding suit was $75 from Amazon?

For a very detailed look at my 2025 shopping, here is this post: Shopping 2025 Review.

Trips

There weren’t many trips this year, just one big one: Asia in April/May, where we went from Tokyo, Taiwan, Korea, and London. As mentioned above, I ran the calculations post-trip and we spent $18,500 total on those six weeks.

I also went to Mexico, Zihuatanejo, in February for about a week, and also Michigan for about three weeks in July. Those were paid for though, so I didn’t spend much if anything at all.

Oh wait, we also went to Vegas for our honeymoon, and that was $2,500 for three nights of fun fun fun!

Category and Tags Review

Dining Out Shared dropped dramatically, partly due to it just dropped as I ate out less, and also much of our shared food moved to our shared expenses. Same with grocery and house supplies, stuff like that. My own dining out was still about the same, a hundred dollars a month. Also, I’ve cut my boba down dramatically, from the many years average of a thousand dollars to just $350 last year!

Snacks still stayed steady though, at about a thousand dollars, so I should look to slash that in half too. After all, 2026 will be the year of my improving health, so snacks of all kinds must be reduced!

Somehow “play” leapt up from $700 to over two thousand dollars, which I’ll assume is the Asia trip and just moving around the type of play I had. For example, alcohol and vents both dropped dramatically—party stayed the same though. Also, movies in the theater tanked hard too, going from $650 to $250, which is twenty less movies a year. That’s likely due to the quality of movies in the theater? Also, theater viewing equals popcorn and Slurpees, both of which I’m trying to cut out!

We’ll get into shopping in-depth at this post, but suffice to say, a huge cut from $5,600 in 2024 to $1,700 this year must mean something! We’ll take a closer look in another post as we reflect on this 2024 post about shopping.

And it can’t be overlooked that LOL/Snap went from $1,650 to $400 over this past year. That means there’s room for another all encompassing video game?! No?

Oh this is untagged and not even on my expenses sheet, but we spent $800 on couples therapy through the year—at $60 per session—and we loved it!

That’s it for specific tags analysis!

New Categories and Tags

Through the power of Chat GPT, I changed and revamped my categories and tags.

Mostly the big ones stayed the same, but I did add an umbrella category for travel, that was broken down into “TRA Accommodations, TRA Flights, TRA Travel,” etc. Aside from that I added “Exercise” as a tag, took out LOL/Snap since I’m no longer playing those as often, and added “Hair” because I wanna see how much I spend on hair-related stuff. See below for two tags suggested by Chat GPT and its explanations:

• Admin = expected-but-rare paperwork
• Other = weird life curveballs

Admin (Annual) is for the occasional, boring-but-official fees you pay just to function inside systems — things like government documents, identity paperwork, licensing, banking or legal filing costs, and other institutional fees that aren’t fun, optional, or recurring monthly. It’s not travel, medical, shopping, or repairs — it’s simply the cost of being a documented, registered adult every once in a while.

Other (Annual) is your safety-net category for rare, meaningful expenses that don’t clearly belong anywhere else and aren’t likely to repeat every year. These are the unusual life events, one-off situations, or unexpected costs that aren’t travel, medical, car, house, admin, or big-ticket purchases — but are still significant enough that you don’t want them buried in monthly spending. It’s the flexible bucket for “life happened, and this didn’t fit anywhere else.”

Admin (Tag) is for small-to-medium everyday expenses related to life logistics and paperwork — the practical costs of managing accounts, documents, scheduling, mailing forms, small bank or processing fees, and other boring-but-necessary tasks. It isn’t fun or emotional spending, and it’s not big or rare enough to be an Annual Admin expense — it’s simply the regular cost of being a functioning adult in systems.

(This was from our first attempt at Acorn Caricature in Korea... does it look like us?!)

Shopping: 2025 Review

I got serious about not shopping this year, so let’s see how I did.  First, let’s go over the parameters set from last year via my post 2024 Review and 2025 Goals:

• Shopping: $5,000
• Clothing: $500
• Gifts: $500 + partner stuff
• Bags: $200, three max bags allowed
• Cute: $100 and one single $50+ item, with no Care Bears and etc allowed!
• Books: $500, but no real max, as needed
• Games, Digital: $400
• Games, Physical: $200
• No computers, phones, or large electronics allowed this year
• A few little tattoos, with exceptions for Asia based artists if available

How did I do? Quite well actually! Well, maybe not that great but we’ll get into that. Overall, I spent $8,500 in the shopping category this year, which is a little disturbing as I had separated out Shopping ($7,500) and Hobbies ($1,000) for 2025. And that number is about the same as in 2024 somehow. But as you'll see, I think I cut down dramatically in some areas!

Big Ticket Items

As covered in my Ways and Means 2025 post, I spent $700 on two tattoos, and about $300 on ukulele equipment. The only other item of note I got was AirPod 4s ($100) back in June, which really were a boon because my old ones were dying. Actually, now it’s about earphones for every situation. I have four: Airpods for normal use, AirPods Pros for noise cancelling flights, open cuff ones for the gym-- recommend the Soundcore C30i ($35)--and old Airpods for quiet TV watching time. AMR taught me the valuable lesson of “why not more earbuds?!"

Clothes

My biggest thing to cut down on this year was clothing. I went full on into the “all black” or nothing at all wardrobe, which helped tremendously. Also I vowed to not get any more jackets, especially denim, or anything that couldn’t be worn over and over. How’d I do? Overall, a huge success!

I bought $550 worth of clothing, spread over twenty items, with the most expensive being a Yang Hansen jersey ($85) and a pair of Adidas Sambas ($80) mid-Asia trip. Other than that, nearly everything else was black basics, various hats, or my entirely necessary Hello Kitty clogs ($30) to replace my worn out ones. Oh I also bought some t-shirts with designs on them that I had to have, namely a Chicago Sky shirt and a KPop Demon Hunters one.

But here’s the big caveat: I spent almost exactly what I budgeted for normal clothing, but then I decided to get healthy and live a long time, and so I had to get exercise-y. As it turns out, working out costs money! Precisely $650 worth of it  as I had to gear up all the way. Three pairs of Adidas shorts, compression shorts for inside those short shorts, two running shirts, two pairs of shoes—general trainers and tennis ones—and two wrist gadgets for my failing wrist. Also, I got a Tune Belt running belt ($30) and an Adidas hat ($25). As you can see, I decided to dedicate my entire gym wardrobe to Adidas, head to toe. And to further that commitment to Adidas, I mean, exercise, I bought three full track suits, one each in black, gold, and warm clay ($65). Now I can sweat sweat sweat in class and style.

Oh and I was gifted a wonderful baggy pair of Zara pants ($90) from my mother-in-law that we then tailored and will look wonderful whenever I choose to debut them. Likely in two to three years, knowing how I am about new stuff.

In addition, I stopped my whole “one to rock, one to stock” policy of getting doubles of things and that will have innumerable benefits for our storage space. Next year: no new clothes at all! My goal is to wear the stuff I’ve had sitting around that I never put on due to fear of dirt. My mint Mickey Mouse hoodie, my fancy Japanese pants, etc.

Gifts

Somehow my second biggest Shopping category was “Gifts: Family,” at $1,400. I dunno why that number is that number, but here we go regardless. Gifts to my mom: ukulele, two small vacuums ($45 each), and a Wirecutter recommended syitren R300 CD player ($100). Some clothing from Korea, random house stuff. A small karaoke machine from Ximen. So let’s say a third of that went to my mom.

There was $100 worth of KPop Demon Hunters shirts for all the nieces and nephew, which had to be done. Oh and I guess I ran a Poway Olympics this year, which was about a hundred dollars total too.

This year I gave each of the kids $100 in Uncle Bux for the year, in an attempt for me to get them stuff but stop the random gifting I did all the time. After a few days of excitement—one of them immediately spent $30 Uncle Bux on a fancy pencil sharpener—they forgot abou them until the end of the year, where we blew a happy $150 at Miniso—their first visit to that cute heaven.

What did I give George and AMR? Apparently, nothing! Oh wait, a Meijer Simpsons suit ($30) and a Medieval Times mini-mug ($10). They still have Uncle Bux to spend…

Under a separate tag, “Gifts: Slushy” is gifts for my wife, which only totaled $450. An Odysea surf board ($100) that we drove all the way to Carlsbad to buy, some Xmas related things, and that seems to be about it! I need to gift her more frankly!

Games, Books, Beauty, Misc

So I set aside Hobbies as a new category, which mostly encompassed games and books. I figured they were “shopping” but I was spending enough on them that I wanted to separate them out. In 2025, buying physical (board) games cost me $350, digital games $300, and $400 for League of Legends and Marvel Snap related stuff. That’s exactly $1,000 total for games. Most of the digital games expenditure was an iOS board game splurge in December, but also I got Mario Party Jamboree, Switch Sports, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, and Tiny Bookshop for my Switch. Oh I also spent $100 on two extra JoyCons so that we could play six player Boomerang Fu. Actually let’s reconfigure, with $125 for digital iOS games, $250 for Switch stuff, and $250 for physical games.

The physical games I bought: Sherlock Consulting Detective: Thames Murders ($60), Everdell ($50), Wavelength ($35), Bohnanza, Medium, Sunday Club, Ravensburger memory, and Grab and Go Monopoly, which is a tiny Monopoly set I’m in love with!

$350 on sixteen physical books, and an equal amount on twenty-five digital books—with a hundred of those going toward a single book, Georgia Munro-Cook’s Building the WNBA. It provides a comprehensive historical and contemporary analysis of the WNBA and there’s no other book like it, so I had to get it.

Then, as we were in Korea, we had to get beautiful… After our skin analysis, Slushy took me to Olive Young and helped me procure $120 worth of stuff, which included a cleanser, a toner, two serums, a Medicube, every day sunblock, and an all-important moisturizer. In fact, this moisturizer is so good that I’m gonna give you the name of it so you can get it yourself: AESTURA ATOBARRIER365 Cream ($30). We already sold George on it and Slushy said it’s the best moisturizer she’s ever used. Don’t be a fool, go get some! I was very stingy with my skin products but realized now that I’ve been hoarding them too much, so I’m actaully nowhere near needing refills, minus the Atobarrier.

Also, “beauty” tag related, we spent $450 on dental stuff such as toothbrushes, all the mouthwashes, dental mints, and gum. Most of that was spent together but I just wanted to note that because I wanted to tag “dental” this year especially, as it was your first year doing the Dr. Ellie change-your-life-and-mouth program. Isn’t growing a fabulous mouth garden worth $20 a month each?!

Bags

So here was my biggest problem historically. I love to buy bags and never use them. For 2025, I was given the nigh-impossible quota of $200 and only three new bags max.

You don’t know how many bags I showed poor Slushy in real life and online, as I mulled over every bag decision. Here I will go into detail about the bags that I actually bought, starting with three that technically, very technically, didn’t count.

GU Bag ($20): A sling type bag that was just handy to have, purchased in Japan I believe. This was part of a larger GU purchase so it wasn’t counted as a “bag Jon bought.”

Hangyodon Purse ($15): I saw this beauty at Shilin and circled around three times to look at it while Slushy was in the bathroom. Knowing that I was down to just one open slot for bags, I asked her if this should be it. Cons: it’s pretty small, it’s pretty useless. Pros: it’s got a soft velvety vinyl feel, it’s so so cute. Slushy allowed for it to be “an accessory” if I wore it as such, and I had to promise to wear it soon. That day is coming…

Silver Sling ($15): All Asia trip long, I’d been saving a slot for a silver purse. The search was endless and any store I entered, I’d head straight for anything silver-y. I initially thought my Cinderella would be the Topologie Bottle Sacoche Medium in Chrome, which I’d been eyeing forever online, but when we went to actually look at it, it was just too big. Same with another silver purse in the same department store in Taipei. I was ready to blow all my money on a silver purse!

As it turned, this silver sling was found in one of those cafe-heavy alley neighborhoods in Seoul and it was mostly perfect and it was so cheap. Slushy bought me this purse, along with her own two or three purchases, and thus preserved a precious bag slot for me. I’ll never forget!!!

#1 Black Military XL, Sea Bees ($35): The first bag of the year was bought on April 2 in a Kyoto covered mall. I was on my own, a solo mission, and I went to Sea Bees, this European Surplus store. It had a few options and I was looking for a larger sling for our trip. As it turned out, I got a gigantic sling type. I agonized over the decision but bought it quickly, without even consulting Slushy. Brave, I know. But it was the right move. We used this bag many times over the next few weeks. Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#2 Sling Bag, Kelty ($55): Exactly one week later, I was faced with another hard decision. Was I really about to blow another bag slot just one week later, at Hands Shibuya, one yet another black sling bag? The answer was “yes!” This bag fit me so well and had the perfect zippers, compartments, and pockets. I regret nothing. Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#3 Hello Kitty Handcrafted Tapestry Tote Bag ($35): I almost escaped 2025 with only two bought bags—officially. I actually used my last slot on this pink canvas tool bag, but when it arrived it was deemed too ugly and useless. Then, with the clock ticking down, Instagram fed me this HK tote bag and I was done for. It may not look cute now, but imagine it slung over my arm as I go everywhere with it. “It’s durable, stylish, and eco-friendly! A charming mix of creativity and function—designed for fans and lovers of all things cute. Shop now to grab this exclusive piece!” How could I resist? On Dec 22nd, I pulled the trigger. Unfortunately due to shipping delays, it still has not arrived. Do I look at the tracking daily?  Yes, I do. Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (I can only assume.)

Cute

As for cute things, I was given a self-imposed budget of two cute items. That is mostly defined as “cute items that take up space,” since space is at a premium here at my house. Frankly, I did amazing in this category as I bought NO CUTE THINGS IN 2025! Do you hear me, NO CUTE THINGS!

Okay, that is not entirely true. What I got near the end of the year was a badger figurine ($15), one that is teeny tiny and made of ceramic, you know the type. Did I also spend a few weeks chasing Lil McDonalds toys—I got the chicken nuggets tray, the gold Happy Meal box, and the McD’s Restaurant—and the TMNT x Sanrio collab Happy Meals stuff? Yes I did, but those are all small things that can go eventually into my treasures box. I basically escaped 2025 with nothing cute that would take up space anywhere.

Until Christmas Day, when George and Co. gave me a mysterious present cunningly presented to me via Potato, their new English bulldog—whom I have a contentious relationship with. Note that the exact rule I have listed from the end of 2024 was: “Cute: $100 and one single $50+ item, with no Care Bears and etc allowed!”

Guess what Potato gave me? A boxed two set of Good Luck Bear as Elphaba and Love-a-Lot Bear as Glinda!!! Sigh. Dogs man, man’s best friend indeed. Of course I had to go see what other characters were in the series and they were all wonderful. So yeah, I closed out 2025 with Grumpy Bear as the Wicked Tin Man nine-inch plushie. I mean, what can you do right?

Goals 2026

For this new year, I am going to cut down my spending even more! I read this rule in a newsletter and will aim to do the same: “I managed stick with my favorite time-tested shopping strategy: Never Buy Anything.”

Along with that, a great idea! Instead of buying Amazon stuff willy nilly, I am now going to just put everything in the cart until Wednesdays, and then review and buy everything at once then. That'l give me the important cool down period, and make Wednesdays so extra-exciting!

I’m aiming to slash my clothing budget even further, from $500 to $300—mainly to account for shoes and replacement items. No bags and no cute things. Z-E-R-O. The re-run of Uncle Bux is a great idea. Gifts for family and partners, all good. Books and games, those are mostly fine but I'll strive to keep decreasing those as we go.

And I made a big decision: I am now (back) into pins. In lieu of collecting or purchasing anything else, I will now get pins. And please, if you must get me anything, get me pins. I have a pin display now, which I just bought for twenty dollars. Yes, I realize there’s some irony there in buying something to stop buying, but I guess that’s how consumerism works.

Part Time Lover

Every month I spend $220 on subscriptions, which I have categorized into four categories: digital, entertainment, hosting, and storage, and house. Let’s get into what they are and which ones are truly indispensable!

Digital

Digital could really be renamed “reading” since they are nearly all things that I use to consume things. The real indispensable one is Instapaper ($5), which has been my go-to read later app for years. A recent addition to the process is Readwise ($8) which I got as part of Tiago Forte’s Second Brain system, but frankly, I’m not utilizing enough. In theory, Readwise resurfaces highlights I’ve made in articles, books, and other sources, but if I don’t revisit it regularly, I’m not getting any value out of it. Oops, it just auto-renewed so I guess I’m using it for another year.

I also have 1Password ($3) and Pinboard ($1.50), the former which is an essential, and the latter which is mainly just to keep my bookmarks archived from a former web app that…stored bookmarks. I never look at Pinboard—or make new web bookmarks—but at such a price, it’s a legacy thing to hold on to. [Update: I actually just paid for a lifetime of Anybox ($40), which is just a bookmark storage service. I took one look at it over December and decided I’d find some use for it, if only to archive important bookmarks from Pinboard.]

Technically, a subscription to the New Yorker is more likely “entertainment,” but it’s in the digital category for some reason. For $14 a month, it comes with the paper subscription and access to all their digital stuff. After initially getting lured in by a red tote bag—and a low low introductory price—I now don’t know how I ever lived without the New Yorker. I love the articles, the writers, the (a little too frequent) physical copies, all of it. In theory one could skedaddle from introductory price to introductory price, but I want to support the New Yorker anyway so now just renew every year.

The newest addition to my digital category is a subscription to The Cut ($3), which includes all the digital brands under New York Magazine—including Curbed, Grub Street, Intelligencer, The Strategist, and Vulture. Mainly I found myself frustrated trying to read the few free monthly articles on The Cut and figured it was high time to get a subscription. I don’t regularly read those other sites but I added all of them to my RSS reader so maybe I’ll find some exciting stuff on them soon.

The Ringer—my go-to site—recently went through a redesign and their RSS links all died. People are aghast. If there was a subscription fee for just a RSS feed of the Ringer, I would pay big money for it. Big money!

Entertainment

As for movies and TV, it’s Netflix ($23), Max ($12.50), and until recently, Paramount and sometimes Peacock. Paramount was mostly for old seasons of The Challenge, and Peacock was purely for one show: Poker Face. Now both are gone and we’re down to just Netflix and Max.

Then there’s NBA League Pass ($13), Marvel Unlimited ($6), and Nintendo Online ($3), which are pretty self explanatory. I rarely use Marvel Unlimited actually, despite years of having it, but I just like to have it around. I also added Marvel Snap to the  entertainment list as I’m dedicated to the game and also equally dedicated to not buying more stuff on it save for the ten dollar monthly season pass.

My Spotify($17) supports a family of friends, and obviously, is a must-have. Also, after Stitcher shut down, I moved to Pocket Casts, which has Plus for $1.25 per month. While Pocket Casts has some issues, I do love it and having a podcast app subscription is a must!

YouTube Premium

And the one life changer that I must discuss: YouTube Premium, which at $23 a month—for the family plan, which includes six accounts—has been the best thing ever. Before, I rarely used YouTube unless absolutely necessary, but with the ads removed, YouTube has transformed into an indispensable resource for anything and everything.

You don’t know how much ads hold you back until you don’t have them. Wait, that’s not true, you totally know. But for short form videos like those on YouTube, ads are a killer. So now, freed from even two seconds of ads, I can just surf from video to video, going wherever my mood takes me.

And as I’ve discovered, YouTube has EVERYTHING. That’s obvious but really, it has everything. Besides just content, YouTube has all the how-tos, the explainers, the supercuts, the coming soons, the tier lists, the icebergs, everything. Video creators are making content I never knew I needed, stretching back fifteen years or so.

YouTube has facilitated my deep dives into every subject—recent ones include Modern MBA, Real Science, the history of Godzilla, fourth generation K-pop, Chinese contemporary art, dance tutorials, and on and on. I YouTube how to pronounce things, I YouTube obscure animals, I YouTube history documentaries, a lot of history documentaries. Over time I’ve habituated to put anything into the YouTube search bar, confident that something useful and interesting will surface.

Initially, I had only gotten YouTube Red—which then became Premium—because my friend was getting it and asked if I wanted to split it. I used the no-ad experience for my at-home karaoke. (Which is great btw, and I still have this account open for your use, if you want to scream into microphones at your own house.) As I started to search more things, YouTube slowly morphed into my most utilized consumption app. It was taking over my time spent with podcast, with television and movies, with Googling random stuff, with books even.

Wherever your mind wants to go, YouTube can take you. That’s what YouTube Premium does, and all for the low low price of $15.

“When I meet fellow YouTube Premium people, we are so proud that we’re in this club. This is the one streaming service we’d never give up. YouTube just has everything.” Tim Heidecker Favorite Things 2024

“This is the best money you’ll spend. I love movies, I love television, but that world is kind of shifting its shape a little bit. So in the meantime, I’m devouring so much YouTube content. I have a crew of friends on YouTube that don’t even know me.” Andrew Kuo’s11 Favorite Things 2023

Hosting ($35)

Ah, all the holdovers of an internet life once lived. I have Bluehost for my web hosting, GoDaddy for my various URLs (just four these days), and Soundcloud Pro to store all my past, and past past, podcast episodes. All of these could probably go but it’s important that I maintain my own archives for future generations, don’t you think?

Storage ($18)

This one is easy: storage for Google and storage for Apple. I’m paying three dollars a month for 200GB of Google storage on my main account. There’s also a mystery twenty dollars I’m paying--as recorded on my spreadsheet—but that may be outdated. Seeing as I use Google Docs as my go-to for everything, this is a must-have item. Also I back up my photos on Google Photo here, but that’s low-res and free, I think.

As for iCloud, that most essential of services, I upgraded to 2TB awhile ago and now have four friends on my family plan. After backing up all our phones—and photos—we are still using barely half of the space. It feels luxurious to have so much room for everyone. It’s like I tacked on ADUs to my mansion. Also, I’m paying for my friend’s iCloud storage in Brazil still apparently. So it’s like a second home for me.

House ($9)

I used to pay for an alarm system for my house but after I got over my paranoia of strangers coming in, I decided to cancel it. Now there’s just two camera subscriptions—one of my house, one for my mom’s. I don’t understand the people who don’t have cameras set up at the house. Outside at least, if not inside. Don’t you want to see what’s going on?! Strangely, I don’t have a doorbell camera, but one in my kitchen and living room, covering the front door. Also, my physical door bell fell off a year ago and I never bothered replacing it because my rationale was that anyone needing to find me at home wouldn’t be using my doorbell anyway. So far, no regrets and a lot more quiet.

Shopping: 2024 Review and 2025 Budgeting

After going through and finishing Ways and Means 2024, I decided I needed to get a closer look at shopping and see what that was all about. I thought I had done a pretty decent job of not buying as much this year but the tale of the tape said I didn’t. So what went into that $10,500 of shopping category?

The previous year's “shopping” was only $8,800, even with lots of big ticket items and hobbies not even separated out. So what in the world was 2024’s shopping all about? And what lessons can I learn to cut down on the number of trips to consumerism—and late night Amazon?

Setting aside $1,800 on a tattoo in October, $1,250 for Taiwan shopping that had to be done—we will never need socks again, until our next trip…—and then $1,000 on MacBook Air and a replacement Pencil, there was $2,500 left over in the mysterious “shopping” tag.

But before I get to that, let’s clear out the other tags first with books, games, and house things. In 2024, I spent $750 on forty-five books, with twenty three digital ones at $11 each, and physical at $23. Digital games was $650 for twenty-seven instances, at an average of $24 each. Physical games cost $400 for eleven, at $36 each. That’s about a thousand dollars spent on games—minus LOL and Snap which was $1,600 combined,if you’ll recall.

House stuff cost $1,500 between needed things, new decorative stuff and furniture, and some small supplies like batteries and Swiffer replacements. House is house stuff, that can’t really be changed or cut down.

And fate also delivered a Celtics title this year—finally!—so I had to splurge on some championship stuff after they won the title: Celtics wearable gear ($120), Funko Pop series for the starting lineup ($110), Panini cards ($45), SLAM and SI magazine covers ($45 combined). That’s a total of $300 spent on a Finals win. 

The wise man would just invest $200 now in a Celtics title bet and see if they can pull it off again for a back-to-back. A now even wiser man says that betting on the Celtics is never a good idea so I’ll just budget out some more money for the inevitable nineteenth title in 2025. Screw the luxury tax, we’re going all in!

Shopping

So what went into the broad shopping tag anyway? A wetsuit was the only thing over a hundred dollars—it was one-fifty--and then it was death by sixty-four cuts as $2,000 was spent under “shopping.” 

Note: Once again, we’ll disregard everything we bought in Taiwan as that was just pure value and joy from my partner's first time to Taiwan—for the record it was $500 of shopping stuff from Taiwan.

I went through and labeled each purchase as one, two, or three, with one being “had to get,” two as “maybe not needed”, and three “nope, bad decision.”

Of those three categories, $800 on twenty-nine items were a great decision.  A lot of that was essentials like the wetsuit, some surf grass, compact travel chargers, two pairs of Loop earplugs (amazing!), and some phone lanyards, art markers, and a Glocusent book light that may change my life by allowing me to read physical books again.

Also, there was a stuffie or two in there. Did you know that forty percent of US adults sleep with a stuffie? "The Case for Sleeping With Stuffed Animals as an Adult"

Looking at the list, there was more surf and pool stuff too. Actually, all the essential items I looked at fall into three or four broad categories: water use related things, electronics, stuff for phones, and art or pen stationary.

Shopping section two was twenty-eight items of questionable buying, which totaled about $900. All of these items could probably have been not bought and not missed, so we’ll keep that in mind. And at the end of the list, eight things totaling $250 could have definitely gone. They were literally all bags or cute things, as will be examined below.

So of the 2024 non-Taiwan, non-Big Ticket Item stuff, it was a tad under two thousand and I think I can cut that exactly in half to one thousand dollars. We can do it!

Clothing

There was $350 spent on clothing in Taiwan, on twelve occurrences. A lot of those were sock related. The standout expensive item was a Zara jacket ($90) that I’ve actually yet to wear, as this other green one ($30) has been far more versatile. Clothes shopping in Taiwan is a must, and for those prices, no issues at all!

The rest of my seventeen clothing purchases aren’t that exciting at all, as I’ve largely found my wardrobe—I wear the same thing ninety percent of the time—and most of it was just basic items like thermals, baggier sweatpants, very long basketball shorts, and replacement items. Somehow all that added up to $1,000 spent on clothes. Shrug?

I did go look around for Nineties styled denim shorts and jeans this summer and I found them at Zumiez, for about $40 each. As you can sense in the stuff I bought this year: loose is back and we gotta look the part.

Speaking of looking the part, I got an extra-thick Coke logo-ed white shirt from PacSun around the same time, on the heels of New Jeans’ “So Sweet” video, which was basically a giant ad for Coca-Cola. I subsequently wore my new baggy outfit to a k-pop party—the best of the many in 2024 I went to—and think it was probably my best sartorial decision of the year. “New Jeans never die!”

I could easily half clothes shopping to $500, so that’ll be the goal.

Gifts

A category broken into three sets: friends, family, and partner. For friends, there was very minimal spent since I only gifted absolute essentials, which cost $200 and I have no regrets. I would’ve gifted someone a white Simple Human trash can but they refused refused refused.

As for family, a total of $1,100 was gifted, which was mostly to the nieces--and one or two things for the nephew now that he is of age to remember me—and some to George. Of those thirty five items, nine were from Taiwan ($250), thirteen given with no regrets ($300), six given that probably wasn’t necessary ($150), and seven that were perhaps outright not needed at all ($450) and likely gave me as much joy as the receivers.

So, I could likely save $600 on not impulse buying stuff for the kids and instead funnel say, $300 into valuable things for them. Maybe I should just tell them their annual budget for things from me and they can start a pre-budget club budget club?

Lastly I spent $500 on gifts for my now partner. Of that, it was mostly replacement iPods, Xmas stuff, some clothing such as two Forever 21 jackets that looked absolutely amazing, and our tour de resistance: "Taipei Tennis Club" clothes that we designed, which is really a gift for us both. If anything, I need to shower her with more gifts in 2025.

So the new budget for gifts in 2025 is as follows:

• Friends: $100
• Family: $400 ($100 per child, and Georgemeer)
• Partner: Unlimited!!!

Bags

So the two things I was supposed to cut back on this year was cute stuff and bags—owing to my declaration to “give up X” if the Celtics win a championship in 2024.

The Celtics won their eighteenth title on June 18 and yet after that date, I still bought twelve bags. Four of them were Ape and Bird fanny backs, which can be excused, but that left eight still to be accounted. Mark another one off since it was just a plain old black duffel for travel, and we’re still left with seven bags bought that were done in violation of my vow. Note: Does this mean the Celtics won’t win title nineteen back-to-back?!

Hello Kitty duffle, a backup white Miffy bag for one I bought a few weeks proper, a gift bag that wasn’t used, two Elecbae Candy Bags that were so cool but likely unnecessary, a bag shaped like a pizza the was truly me and also truly on sale. And then somehow I got a Carhartt waist bag that I’ve yet to use. And lastly, I bought a Cotopaxi Allpa 20L ($140) to replace my Allpa 28L but as it turned out, the 20L was too small and will likely be used as more of a daily travel backpack.

In sum, I spent $225 on seven bags pre-vow and $425 on twelve bags post-vow. Of those nineteen purchased bags, I could’ve likely cut thirteen of them. So new rule: I can only get three bags in 2025, totaling two hundred dollars. T-H-R-E-E. And that’s only to leave room in case we see something great in Asia when we go there in the spring.

Cute

Okay, and looking at things labeled “cute,” I spent $850 on cute things—minus some for family gifts, which don’t count here—encompassing forty-three items. Of those forty-plus items, I likely only needed ten of them as must-haves, most of them digital stuff like LINE stickers or these wonderful iOS apps by Euihyung Jung that are just illustrated bears. (I bought all four of them—at about a dollar each—just to have the icons on my phone. Zero regrets!)

Of all those cute things, I could’ve spent under a hundred dollars on just the essentials--plus a hundred spent in Taiwan—which would mean that I could’ve trimmed $150 of “definitely didn’t need” and then $500 of “probably didn’t need.”

Things that fall into the “probably didn’t need” was a CIVIVI Baby Banter knife, a JBL Go Speaker, Logitech Pebble Keyboard, Care Bears x Hello Kitty collaboration, and little pink and yellow chubby stars that I got two packs of to give to guests. Like I said, prooooobably don’t need but wasn’t terrible to have.

Things I definitely didn’t need was a Hello Kitty necklace ($40) that says “Jace” on it, a Peach Fuzz Sardine lighter, Sanrio watches for the kids, some Hello Kitty stickers, and the aforementioned pizza bag.

So new rule for 2025: I can spend $100 on cute things, and then $50ish on one single item like a knife or little speaker type thing. Oh yeah, and no more stuffies, Care Bears, or Sanrio items—for me.

To summarize my new shopping budget and rules for 2025:

• Shopping: $5,000
• Clothing: $500
• Gifts: $500 + partner stuff
• Bags: $200, three max bags allowed
• Cute: $100 and one single $50+ item, with no Care Bears and etc allowed!
• Books: $500, but no real max, as needed
• Games, Digital: $400
• Games, Physical: $200
• No computers, phones, or large electronics needed this year
• A few little tattoos, with exceptions for Asia based artists if available

Last year, all the things I mentioned above totaled $12,000 give or take. Assuming the same amount for house and beauty stuff ($2,000), we can trim that remaining $10,000 from 2024 down to $4,000 for 2025.

There is an Asia and Europe trip for later this year, so that’ll have to be accounted for, but perhaps at max that non-house and beauty number will be pushed to $5,000 for “shopping” overall—budgeting a thousand dollars for big trip shopping. Okay, we can do this right? Where there’s a goal, there’s a way!

Ways and Means: 2024 Recap

Life Summary

After declaring myself post-food and post-travel in 2024, I did indeed ingest less food and also went less places. Aside from a few jaunts to Los Angeles, there was only one trip: a short five day run to New York, mainly to get a tattoo. So after Taiwan in January, I was just in good old San Diego.

Did I succeed in making more money in 2024, as my resolution was? Heck no! Maybe next year… The biggest change in 2024 was more partying—which meant more alcohol I guess?—and a dramatic downswing in how much I spent on video games, mostly League of Legends. Still, there are cuts that could be made there. With 2025 around the corner, I have an idea of how the year will play out, but let’s look at last year first!

Month by Month Breakdown

• Jan: $3,250 (Offset -$2000)
• Feb: $2,900
• Mar: $2,500
• Apr: $2,500
• May: $2,300
• Jun: $2,200
• Jul: $2,700
• Aug: $2,700
• Sep: $2,500
• Oct: $2,300 (Offset $-400)
• Nov: $2,800
• Dec: $2,200

Variable Expenses

I averaged $2,600 variable expenses a month, lower than last year’s by three hundred dollars. That’s not far off my projected $2,500 per month budget and has to be my finest month by month ever! Granted, I did use two offsets for January and October, due to Taiwan (-$2000) and New York ($-400) respectively. 

Note: I usually use “offset” to half out my vacation travel, and then add that half to Annual because I don’t want it to bloat my monthly but also don’t want to make it artificially low by throwing everything into Annual when I travel.

Barring January in Taiwan—which would have been $5,300 without the offset—every other month this year was under three thousand dollars! That's not too bad, and very consistent. I'll have to see how that falls in line with my pre-COVID monthly expenditures.

Six Big Categories

• 🥐 Food: $14,500
• 🏏 Shopping: $10,500
• 🪂 Play: $5,500
• ✈️ Transportation: $3,500
• 🎲 Hobbies: $2,500
• 🏠 House: $1,500

The old big four categories was expanded last year to add two more: hobbies and house. I realized my expenditure for games—mostly video—was skewing all my play and shopping stuff, so I wanted to break them out. The same thing with “house,” which I felt like deserved its own big category.

Despite going post-food from the beginning for 2024, I somehow spent more money on food in 2024 than in 2023. I’ll have to figure out why that was exactly. And with hobbies and house broken out, “shopping” somehow still went up by more than two thousand dollars. Again, an investigation must be done! The subsequent drop in “play” from 2023 to 2024 had to be mostly hobbies related I’m guessing.

In all, it was $35k in variable expenses, $12.5k fixed, and then $11k in annual expenses. Overall it amounts to $58,500 on the year and a lifestyle of $76,000 lifestyle pre-tax. And that’s with my $2000 mortgage wiped out. We’re gonna have to dig deeper into 2024 to figure out what in the world happened, as I barely traveled all year and was mostly home from what I recall! [Edit Dec 2025: I messed up the adding and changed the math, so now it's much lower than the previously estimated number.]

Food

An aside about food. I started tracking our groceries by line item after awhile because our bills were starting to get quite high. Like from a hundred and fifty or so to over two hundred regularly. Were prices actually getting higher? Or should we go to different grocery stores for lower prices? After some serious tracking, the short answer was: food costs are just higher.

I did split out grocery bills into actual groceries and household supplies—toilet paper, etc etc—and that helped to see what was happening, but overall, the extra fifty dollars spent per trip to the grocery store was mostly just an increase in prices over the year. The only cut we instituted was to eliminate getting a sumo citrus bag that was fifteen dollars. Back to regular oranges!

In addition, my goal this year was to spend less on paying for people when I eat with them—which I would say I do about half the time.

For my own personal food, I have a “dining out” tag, which resulted in $1,500 spent on the year. My “dining out shared” tag came to a grand total of $7,500 though.

I broke down those shared meals and it came down to: meals with my partner ($3,400), meals with friends ($2,300), and then a few instances of food with family or taking food over to Poway ($750).

In theory some of that is cuttable, but there were really only eleven instances where I paid for friends—aside from family or partners, or my one friend who was jobless for some time.

Somehow, food was thirty percent of my total expenditure this year, which seems in line with years prior, but I was hoping to be lower. I’ll have to battle that category yet again I suppose! Actually, that has to be wrong somehow...2023 was one-fifth of my money going to food, so that seems higher than quite a bit possibly.

Big Ticket Items

I broke out “big ticket items” to more categories, namely shopping, electronics, and play. You’ll see why below but mostly it was because “big ticket item” was starting to be too much of a catch all and I needed more specificity.

• Tattoo ($1,800)
• MacBook Air ($800)
• XG Concert ($450)
• O’Neil wetsuit ($150)
• BAB RISO Class ($150)
• Cotopaxi Allpa 20L ($150)

And then there were a few Target runs for stuffies and household things, that ran around one hundred and fifty dollars each. The big item was obviously the tattoo, my first since 2020. I’d been waiting for this artist since I discovered her last year—she lives in Hong Kong—and when I saw that she was going to be in New York, it seemed great timing to just go there and get it done.

Also, after an unconscionable amount of time, I upgraded my Mac Pro 2015 to a 2022 Air which was on mega-sale. That was my big electronics purchase this year and that means a new Mac, PC, iPad, and iPhone in the last two years. I should be good for awhile right?!

Along with all that, throw in some door covers for parties, a San Diego Wave game, a family time art Skate World, a terrible Candlelight concert, a train ride to Tainan, two Poway Adult School classes—for Procreate and Korean—and my Annual really had quite a bit in it this year. Note: I may not even be using “Annual” enough, as I found out George throws tons of stuff in there, like a whole lot!

In 2025, a new car is (finally) coming, and overall my house did quite well in its seventh year post-remodel. Nothing huge broke, yay! Oh wait, except for a massive water leak that cost maybe $1,000 extra in water bills, but hey, the water company gave me like two hundred dollars back so that’s sort of a win.

Looking forward for annual stuff, there’s a big Asia trip coming up, and possibly LASIK…

Trips

Oh, zero actual money was spent on flights this year, as I went to New York with miles. Airport taxis did cost five hundred though, between Taiwan and New York trips. Oh, I totally forgot I also went to Salt Lake City in March for a few days, but that was paid for by not me. And the only accommodations I paid for was two nights in Tainan ($250) and then one night in K-Town LA so we could rest after a party for about the same amount.

Category and Tags

We already covered the big six categories above, so we’ll just look at some tags. Dining out, solo or with people, came out to twenty-three percent, which was quite a bit higher than last year for some reason. Add in groceries and that’s thirty percent total. I could conceivably cut my snack and boba intake in half, thus saving around a thousand dollars. Perhaps the goal for 2025 should be to do exactly that, especially on the snacks!

In a surprise, alcohol was my biggest “play” expenditure this year, as we went over a bit more than last year, to a total of two thousand dollars. Let me just tell you that even as a non-drinker, I can hold my liquor and apparently I’m buying $167 per month worth of drinks for myself and others! To add on to that, I added a “party” tag to track how much I paid for various parties and covers, and it was five hundred dollars total.

Movies was broken down into “theater” and “digital” and they were at $650 and $100 respectively, which seems like an overall drop from last year.

I did the same for books too, separating them out into physical and digital purchases, which added up to $550 and $250 respectively, leaving me with seven hundred and fifty dollars spend on books this year.

My shopping tag seemed a bit high--especially in January and November—so I’ll have to figure out what that was. Less post-midnight browsing on Amazon is must-change. Plus, all the “shopping” doesn’t include family gifts, clothes, books, household stuff, and stuff like Cocofloss, etc. Next year I’m adding “dental” tag by the way, to track expenditures for our new dental mouthwash system. Note: Google Dr. Ellie’s Complete Dental System for the scoop!

As for the new hobbies category, the main culprit was still League of Legends, but that’s going to drop dramatically in 2025 as I’ll only be paying for the bare minimum for our clan. Marvel also dropped, as I am still playing but not buying skins, and actually moved the whole thing to a yearly subscription of $9.99 monthly for the season pass. I’ll still track “LOL / Snap” together for one more year, just to make sure it’s in decline for 2025.

Other games stuff I got was $650 for digital and $350 for physical, which mainly means board games and such. I’ll cover those in a separate post.

Finally, there were some decorative upgrades to the house, mainly a new corner cabinet, a cork felt thing for the office wall, and then a full replacement of pillows and throw blankets for the salon area. Plus there’s a new table for the kitchen—farewell modular metal cafe tables, farewell!—but my partner purchased that so it’s not on the budget. We are now a round table family.

Tags added: Dental, Party, LOL/Snap combined. Removed: Games, as it has been split into two. Also, “household” is now “supplies.” That’s all folks, stay tuned for an exciting 2025 with big purchases, big travel, and big life changes ahead!

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!