Where my money went in 2012

Here's the breakdown of my spending last year, listed with most expensive items first.

1. I spent by far the most money paying off debt, which includes two student loans and my car note. It wasn't as much as I thought, or had planned. I don't count credit card debt in that, because I've accrued and paid that off throughout the year. Those expenses are counted in other categories.

2. Recurring monthly expenses: Rent, cell phone, etc.

3. Food, travel, and medical (mostly dentist) were next on the list. Not shocked to see that I spent that much on groceries/ restaurants. That's always high on the list. Food is so dang expensive.
Travel and medical expenses are usually not so high, but it was that kind of year.

4. I spent a surprising amount of money on clothing, seeing as how I don't really remember doing that much clothes shopping. I did count wedding dress, undergarments, and shoes in there, so that did bring the total up.

5. Next are gas, car insurance, and savings. I wonder if I can get the car insurance bill down. Time to do some shopping around. Glad I was able to put something into savings this year.

6. Pumpkin's food, flea prevention, and random vet bills. We did have the teeth cleaning and the unfortunate demon eye incident.

7. The rest is all a mishmash of entertainment, gifts (including care packages), professional certification maintenance, random trips to Walgreens, and stuff like that.

Naturally, if I hadn't traveled so much or gotten all the dental stuff done, I could have put that all into paying off debt. That would have put me closer to where I'd like to be.

However, those types of things happen and I'm lucky to be able to afford things like that.

As always, there are a few things that I could stand to be a little more conservative about, especially on random piddly purchases that really add up. I don't really account for those in my budget and I should. I think that's my weakest point when it comes to managing money. I guess it's all in the learning curve of managing expenses. Every year I get a little better at handling it.

For instance, I've kept track of every debit/ credit card purchase I've made for the last 5 years. In sheer number of transactions, I've gone down every year. I've gone from over 400 transactions to around 250. In 2011, I made about 80 purchases on my credit card, because it was in a drawer for most the the year while I paid it off.

Anyway, this has been really handy, because it's hard to make a budget if you have no idea where your money is already going. Now I (and the rest of you, haha) know exactly where it is going!