We Spent A Lot Of Money This Year... 🤯

Happy December 1st! 

The last month of the year is officially here, and we’re excited to end 2024 on a high note. The weather might not be best (unless it is where you live - then we’re happy for you!), but we can still make this a great few weeks before the new year hits. 

We have a really fun issue of Money Convos with Steph & Den for you today, so let’s get into it! 

Here’s what’s up in this copy 🤑🗞 

• Did we invest or spend more money this year? 👀

• Steph’s $0 UberEats challenge is DONE! 🥳

• It’s time to give out some awards… 🏆

• How to end the year strong 💪🏿💪🏻

Money Convo Of The Month

How Much We Made, Spent and Invested in 2024

It’s the final month of the year, which means that it’s time to look back on everything that happened with our money for the past year. 

ICYDK, we do this every single year, and it’s pretty easy for us to do, because we keep track of every transaction and money move that we make with our budget tracker. We input everything on a monthly basis, and then that information automatically feeds into our annual budget tab. So, at the end of the year, we can just go to that tab and voila, we know exactly how much money we made, spent, and invested, both per month and per budget category. 

So, with all of that being said, let’s break down our results! 

We kept our salary consistent all year long - our monthly take home pay is $4,459.91 each, which means that we made $53,518.92 each for the entire year. We also plan on paying ourselves an end-of-year bonus within the next few weeks, so keep an eye out on our YouTube channel for an update on that.

We also kept up with our monthly investing goal of $2,000 each, which means that we invested $24,000 each for the entire year. Actually, on top of that, Dennis added in an additional $1,500 throughout the year, so he specifically invested a total of $25,500. Now, with that being said, we also plan on investing the entire end-of-year bonus that we pay ourselves, which means that we’ll likely hit our goal of investing at least 50% of our overall income for the year. We also hit some other big investing goals, including maxing out our Tax Free Savings Account (both of us!), and maxing out our First Home Savings Account for the year (both of us!). 

Now, onto the most interesting one… spending. We both have our individual budgets, so we have different budget goals for each spending category (other than investing, where we both aim for $2,000/month!), but, let’s start with the overall numbers. Also, keep in mind that it’s only December 1st, so we of course haven’t included all of our December expenses, but we did decide to project as many expenses as possible (like all of our fixed expenses); our upcoming YouTube videos will have more updated numbers that include December later this month! 

So, I (Steph!) spent a monthly average of $2,620.95, which means that I spent $31,451.36 total for the year (and I expect that this total number will go up to approximately $32,000 after including a few more December expenses). Now, this is slightly more than my monthly spending goal of $2,459/month, but I ended up spending over $5,000 less than I did last year, so I’m very happy with my results. The biggest impact came from my $0 UberEats challenge, so make sure you check out those results down below! 

Dennis spent a monthly average of $2,980.12, which means that he spent $35,761.49 total for the year (and he expects that this total number will go up a little bit more after accounting for a few more December expenses, as well). We’ll break down why his number is higher than mine in a YouTube video coming soon, so make sure you keep an eye out for it!

So, there you have it - that’s how much we made, spent and invested in 2024! We’ll share more about how we did with our money this year on our YouTube channel throughout December, so make sure you check out our channel. Also, make sure you take some time to do this exercise for yourself, too!

$0 UberEats Challenge - Steph’s Monthly Update

And with that, the $0 UberEats challenge officially comes to an end. 

I seriously feel like 2024 went by in the blink of an eye, and this challenge has been a big part of that. I mean, how did I set this goal a full year ago, and now it’s over?! Well, technically I could still slip up in December, but I’m pretty confident that if I’ve made it this far, then I’m in the clear. 

Yes, you read that right - I successfully completed this challenge, and I spent literally $0 on UberEats, or takeout of any kind, in 2024 (!!!). After spending $2,229.99 on takeout (mostly UberEats specifically) last year, going right to $0 is a big accomplishment, and I’m so proud of myself. I’m normally not a ‘cold turkey’ kind of person, but for this, I think it really helped me - and, having all of you to hold me accountable really helped, too. 

So, let’s get into the final results of how much money I spent on food overall this year - 

• I spent an average of $188.68/month on eating out ($150/month budget) 

• I spent an average of $40.14/month on coffee shops ($50/month budget)

• I spent an average of $328.91/month on groceries ($300/month budget) 

You can see that I did a pretty good job sticking to my budget overall! I was a little bit over my grocery budget, but I think it makes sense that we spent a little bit more on groceries this year, because we ate from home and tried new recipes a lot more often. 

I also realized that I did a better job sticking to my eating out (IRL at restaurants) budget earlier in the year, and slipped up a bit over the past few months, so I need to keep a better eye on that towards the end of next year. 

But, probably the most crazy insight I have is that in 2023 I spent a grand total of $4,703.51 on eating out, and in 2024 I spent a grand total of $2,264.16 on eating out. That’s an almost $2,500 difference (!!! again), and that almost all comes from this challenge, so I’d say it was a big success overall. 

So, that’s it for this challenge. I decided that I’m going to try to stick with it again next year, but I’ll likely pick a different, new goal to really focus on - so, stay tuned for next month’s issue to see what I choose!

And The Award Goes To… 🥁

Since it’s the last month of the year, we felt like it made sense to share a recap of our favourite, and most interesting, money moments from the past 12 months… and for fun, we’re going to do it in the style of awards! 

So, here are our ‘Money Awards’ for 2024 -

We hope you liked that segment! It was actually really interesting to see what specific restaurant we each spent the most money at throughout the year… we highly recommend looking into what yours was!

End-Of-Year Money Checklist ✔️

Save this checklist for later this month, when you (hopefully) have those few days between the beginning of the holiday break and New Year’s Eve to just relax, recharge and plan your new year. 

• Review how much money you made, spent, saved and invested - If you’ve been using a budget template, then this is an easy task; if not, then you know what to do for next year! This helps you really understand what happened with your money this past year, which you can build off of for the upcoming year. 

• Reflect on your spending in depth - Ask yourself questions about what you see. What do you want to change for next year? What do you want to keep the same? Money is about emotions, and how you feel, too! 

• Create your budget tracker for the new year - Set up a fresh, empty tracker, and make sure that you refresh your budget categories and goal amounts, so that they align with your plans for the year ahead (Reminder: We’ll have an updated version of our free budget template available later this month!)

• Top up your investment accounts - For your tax-advantaged and/or retirement investment accounts specifically, take a look at how much you’ve contributed this year, and see if you have more room - or more money - to add to your account. 

• Negotiate lower rates for your fixed expenses - Every year, we call our internet provider and negotiate a new rate. We highly recommend doing this for your internet bill, phone bill, or any recurring bill you have that may automatically increase in price! Also, don’t forget to remove any unused subscriptions that you’ve been paying for. 

• Create new money goals - New year, new money goals! Take some time to write down your goals for 2025 (if you want to hear ours, we’ll be sharing them next month!).