December 2012 Expenditure Tracker

Item	Dec 2012	Target (new)	Over/(Under)
Share Investments	+$1,513	+$3,100	-$1,587
Offset Acct.	+$3,644	+$1,300	+$2,344
Personal expenditure	+$2,967	+$2,000	+$967

This is my last expenditure tracker post for the 2012 calendar year and in addition to doing the monthly tracker it will give me a chance to assess how I went for the whole calendar year versus my goals at the start of the year as well as my reset goals in the middle of the year.

There were no particularly big impacts on my expenditure goals for December 2012.  This was largely due to the fact that I was travelling for much of the month and my only real investments were in my automatic employee share plan and reinvestment of dividends.  The rest of my savings went to my home loan offset account as I had found no real compelling reasons to either buy or sell stock at the prices at the time.

If I look at the 3 accounts in turn over the month

• Home Loan offset account
• This increased much more than usual for the reasons I outlined above - I had no particular feelings about stock investments and I actually didn't spend that much in cash over the month (my credit card is another story though that effect will be seen in the January 2013 expenditure tracker post) and so all this saved cash was put into my offset account
• Share investments
• As outlined above these increased slightly due to my employee share plan as well as Dividend Reinvestment Plans that I had in place 
• I was tempted to sell out of several securities which had a run but I held back and was glad I did so because the strong run in risk on securities has continued into the start of 2013
• Personal expenditure
• I spent quite a lot of money on my credit card in November 2012 compared with the previous month and I had to pay this off in December.  This was offset by a reduction in cash related expenditures.  
• I did not spend as much cash because for a fair bit of the month I was outside the country 

Below I have included two tables. One which outlines my expenditure performance when compared with what I had set out to do at the start of the year and the second a half year performance assessment (i.e. since I reset and realigned my expectations)

Item	Jan 12 - Dec 12	Target (old)	Over/(Under)
Share Investments	+$51,787	+$39,600	+$12,187
Offset Acct.	+$29,029	+$19,200	+$9,829
Personal expenditure	+$41,593	+$18,000	+$23,593

Although it may seem strange that I achieved all of my savings goals for the year while at the same time really spending much more than I was hoping to spend, this is due to the fact that I received a bonus which I don't account for when making my expenditure and savings goals.  I am happy that I far exceeded what I had originally planned to do on the savings and investing front at the start of the year although I really do need to control how much I spend.  I spent over $40,000 in after tax dollars living at home in what should be quite a low expenditure environment.  Going forward I am going to try and control this some more.

Item	Jul 12 - Dec 12	Target (new)	Over/(Under)
Share Investments	+$26,978	+$18,600	+$8,378
Offset Acct.	+$35,024	+$7,800	+$27,224
Personal expenditure	+$19,421	+$12,000	+$7,421

Since re-setting my expenditure goals to what I think are more achievable and normal expectations I have done much better.  Not all of this was because I increased the amount I was willing to spend on personal expenditure but I have actively been spending less per month.  Once again the significant out performance of my savings and expenditure goals was due to the bonus that was paid in the second half of the year.

You May Also Be Interested In:
Expenditure Tracker - All Posts
Net Worth - All Posts
December 2012 Net Worth - $334,000
Unrealistic budget expectations - Always be prepared to reset your expectations