Looking Back: 2020 Money Pie

Unfortunately, in 2019 the system that I use for compiling my data had a glitch and I decided not to recreate everything, so I never got 2019 data all put together. This year, I was interested to see how my spending stacked up to prior years, as I did not spend as much money on travel, which is generally my second biggest category. I also wanted to break out some of my shopping a little more fully, and so I spent some time looking through my Amazon, Costco and Walmart receipts since a lot of those are multiple categories, whereas in years past I just called Costco "groceries" and Amazon "shopping." 

So without further ado, here is the pie!

Overall, in 2020 I spent 94% of my average over the years of 2016-2018, or 6% less than normal. The categories that decreased the most in dollar terms were Travel and Dining Out and the categories that increased the most were Groceries and Health. 

Home: (Increase 2% YoY) This category includes mortgage, utilities, garbage, taxes, insurance and garden. As you can see, this is my largest category by far. However, I spent a little more than I normally do in this category, and I chalk that up to the fact that I decided to start paying a little extra toward my principal midway through the year. Otherwise this category dollar-wise has been very consistent through the years and is always my largest.

Groceries: (Increase 62% YoY) Woof! I spent a lot more on groceries than I normally do, which is probably due to the following: (1) I bought a lot of non-perishables online and I probably went a little overboard. (2) I stocked up at Costco a few times. (3) I decided to experiment with making my own dehydrated meals and also tried some new foods for camping trips (that could be its own post!) (4) I  cut out sugar and am eating more natural items and I tried a lot of new products for this as well (this could also be its own post). However, an interesting note is that if you add groceries + dining out, I spent less in total this year than I do on average (almost 20% less). 

Transportation: (Increase 14% YoY) This category is often my third biggest as it consists of daily public transportation commute costs plus any car related costs like gas, tolls or maintenance. This year, due to COVID, I actually did go into work every day, but I drove instead of taking public transportation, which upped my car related costs significantly. In addition, I had to buy two new tires and a new side window for the Red Rocket in 2020. 

Travel: (Decrease 64% YoY) This includes any flights, meals, lodging or activities while traveling. This year I took one flight and paid for one that I did not use. Otherwise, I took a couple of road trips. I tried to be more diligent with breaking down my costs, so this does account for all camping, food, gas etc. that I used while doing the road trips, but there were a lot of cooler and backpack meals and wild camping, so the number was very low. 

Misc.: (Decrease 36% YoY) This category is mainly gifts. There are a few credit card fees in there as well, but they are minimal. Normally this includes education, hair cuts and massages, but well...I paid for my education in 2019 and it's still postponed, and there have been no hair cuts this year and I decided to put my one massage in Health instead. 

Entertainment: (Increase 10% YoY) This consists of any running, camping, music or national park related items or any other fun activities (excluding travel). This category was larger than normal because of my different allocations this year. In prior years, running shoes were under "shopping" but this year I decided to put them under entertainment. In addition, if I bought food that was only going to be used for camping (a bit of a grey area at times), I categorized it here. The big ticket items were a new tent, two concerts and three pairs of running shoes (I always buy them if they are on sale). 

Health: (Increase 69% YoY) This consists of gym membership, health insurance, doctors visits and things like vitamins and protein powder. This year my insurance increased a little, and I also spent some money trying to figure out a pain I had in my foot at the beginning of the year. However, I did finally cancel the gym membership that I was paying for every money but not using! 

Shopping: (Decrease 29% YoY) This category was mostly toiletries, home supplies and kitchen gadgets, with the bulk of the total going towards a new Ninja. Actually my second largest subcategory here was pet supplies. Gato had fleas a few years ago and I have happily spent money on flea treatment and prevention since then. Fleas give me nightmares.  

Dining Out: (Decrease 90% YoY) Most of my dining out is covered in travel. In fact, I only dined out a few times in January and February when I had some friends visit and we went for beers etc. Otherwise, I bought burritos for my two office mates mid-COVID but that is it! 

The Verdict?: I am now an expert at online shopping. I know where to find a good sugar-free jerky and that MRIs and pet supplies are expensive. Reading and weeding are both free. Owning a house is not. I wonder if next year's grocery number will be lower because I will still be working my way through all of the beef sticks and protein powders that I bought this year. 

Did you spend more or less in 2020 than you normally do? Which categories do you think differed the most year over  year? 

Looking Back: December

Well, that was an interesting month. On December 7th, California imposed another Stay at Home requirement, so I got a lot of stuff done around the house last month!

Running: Definitely not my highest running month ever, but December went out with a bang when I realized on the 29th that I was less than 5,000 feet away from having a total feet climbed of 400,000. So on the 30th, I went and ran up and down a hill near my house a few times and on the 31st instead of drinking champagne, I went and did a trail run to get those last few thousand feet of climbing in. I ended the year with 400,433 feet of climbing. 

Reading: In December I read my most books ever for one month. None of them were total duds, although I did give one book two stars only because I did not like the tone of the narrator (I listened to it as an audiobook and the author was the narrator). My favorite was Christadora, which made it into my top books of 2020. A few others I enjoyed were Gimme Everything You Got (an easy, fast YA read), The Black Swan of Paris (who doesn't love a WWII French resistance novel) and On Tyranny (an interesting comparison between Nazi Germany and the current US).

Travel: Crickets! The furthest I traveled was my commute to work. Oh, I also went to Costco once for a grocery haul so I would not have to go to the store a lot during the shut down. Other than that, I guess going back and forth from the kitchen to the bathroom were my big forays for the month! 

Misc.: I actually got a lot of those little annoying things that you do not like doing done in December. I cleaned out several closets, sorted and threw away paperwork, finally deep scrubbed the bathroom grout, installed a security system myself (it even works!), went through that darn junk drawer and other assorted things like that. I also worked in the yard a couple of times each week, as the Maple tree just keeps giving! I am also doing a lot of video calls!

How was your December? What did you do for the holidays? Did you read any good books? 

Best of 2020: Books

Well it's that time of year again, time to do the wrap ups! This year, due to spending a lot more time at home than I normally do, I read a lot more books than I normally do. In fact, this is the most books read per year since I started tracking and even more than some of the years where I was not working and was traveling a lot. In addition, I read over 20 books in one month alone, which is definitely the most I have ever read in a month! I guess it was that kind of year! 

I always like looking back and remembering what my favorite books were for the year and really enjoy reading other people's lists as well (and adding books to my to-read list!). Here are my recaps from prior years: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2011.

And now, in no particular order, here are my favorite ten twelve books that I read in 2020. 

Five Stars:

Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid: This was a very entertaining book about a rock band in the 60s; it's all about the sex, drugs and rock and roll and it doesn't disappoint. It is written in an interview style and goes back and forth between stories, but that does not detract from the story at all, in fact, it actually made it very entertaining, in my opinion. 

The River by Peter Heller: Two friends go out on a fishing trip in Northern Canada thinking that they are going to have a nice time catching up, fishing and enjoying nature but they end up getting more of an adventure than they bargained for. I won't say more in fear of spoiling it for readers, but let's just say that I finished this book in one day! 

This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger: In the 1930s many Native American children in Minnesota were separated from their families and sent to be "educated." This is the story of two brothers who attempt to escape this life. You really begin to like these brothers and their friends and are rooting for their journey to succeed. Of course they come upon hard times and danger and adventure along the way. 

Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow: I actually did not know what this book was about when I started it; I only put it on my to-read because it had good reviews. However, once I started it, I was both disgusted and enthralled by the story. It is an investigative journalism story about the Weinstein ordeal, not only what he did, but how hard it was to find women willing to testify and how corrupt and controlling the big men in big chairs really are. It was very interesting hearing some of the "behind the scenes" information. 

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou: This was another investigative journalism piece about an ordeal that had been in the news a lot but that I did not know a lot of details about. This talks about the Theranos scandal, which if you are unfamiliar was a company that sold a machine that did blood testing, but they were delivering fraudulent results. Once again, there were some big power people at play here and the fight between might and right is in the forefront of the situation. 

Unorthodox by Deborah Feldman: This book was written by a woman in the strict Satmar sect of the Hasidic Jewish faith. She talks about what it is like to be in a faith where woman have little rights. She is married off at an early age to a man she barely knew and after getting pregnant, decided to try to escape. It is not easy however, as the sect keeps to themselves and if you leave you are often ostracized. I learned a lot about the faith through this book and wanted her to be able to just leave but also understood the difficulties of trying to do so. 

The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune: This book is about a man who lives a pretty by-the-books boring life. One day, his employer sends him to an island for an assignment and it turns out to be one where there are magical (and dangerous) children. He is there to evaluate them and their caretaker and in the end, he gets more than he bargained for. This was a touching book with a couple of twists thrown in and was one that was hard to put down. 

Christadora by Tim Murphy: I had this on hold for a while and finally got it right at the end of the year so it was a last minute five star add. About a family through time, it talks about the struggles of the AIDs movement, issues with addiction, mental disorders and emotional pain. It does jump back and forth a little between time periods, which was a little difficult, but all in all, I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Four Stars: I had a lot of four star reviews this year! Normally three stars is more common for me, basically when I found a book good but not totally wow, but this year I either got more generous or more of them caught my fancy! 

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes & The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson: I am combining this one, because both of these books are about the packhorse librarians of Kentucky and they were both very enjoyable. The packhorse librarians were a group of women in the early 1900s who would ride horses through the remote mountains of Appalachia to deliver books to people who lived too far out of town to come in and get them. In 1930, about 30% of the people living in eastern Kentucky could not read and did not have a school to go to, so this was their only way of learning. These books were both fiction, but they gave me a very interesting peek into the way that things worked in that area, and they make me think of how lucky I am that right now I have about 20 books checked out from the library! 

Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld: This book is a fictional book about what would have happened to Hillary if she had not married Bill Clinton. It has a bit of raunchy areas that I felt it could have done without, and they made me cringe a little, but otherwise it is entertaining and sometimes when reading (or listening in my case) you forget that it is not a biography. I had to go and look up a couple of things to see if they really happened! 

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett: I am not the only one who liked this book; it is on a lot of the top 2020 book lists and that made me put it off for a while actually. However, once I read it, I saw what all of the hype was about. It is about a set of light skinned twins who run away from home and one of them goes off and passes herself as white while the other moves back to their hometown with their mother. They live very separate lives for a while but eventually their paths cross again. 

It was hard to pick only ten this year as I read a lot of good books (hence the extra two)! Some of the others that I enjoyed this year included: A Burning, We Are Not From Here, The Girl with the Louding Voice, We Were Eight Years in Power, The Last Train to London, Sigh, Gone, Saving Ruby King, Know My Name, One of Us is Lying, Dear Edward, Shoe Dog, The Story Keeper, City of Girls, Cilka's Journey, Talking to Strangers, I'll Be Gone in The Dark & I Am Malala. 

What were your favorite books in 2020? Did you read more this year than you normally do?