Canadian Personal Finance Blog

The topic of what my household spends money on has been discussed before, but here is as a percentage of my entire expenditures, what my family spent it’s money on last month (April 2008)

• Tax 25.24%
• Recreation 19.68%
• Groceries 13.11%
• Insurance 8.88%
• Mortgage Int 5.55%
• Utilities 3.94%
• Auto 3.54%
• RRSP 3.04%
• Commuting 2.70%
• Savings (non RRSP) 2.28%
• Other 12.04%

These numbers are relatively trustworthy since I use Quicken fairly religiously, and my expenses are mostly tracked there (and we don’t really use a lot of cash in our household).

Financial Scary Things

Recreation being 20% of the money I spent things on last month. That is down to my kids recreational activities (basketball). That is one hell of a lot of money, and that is not registration fees or anything like that, that is money spent on going to and coming from and being at tournaments. That one scared the nickels out of my piggy bank.

Why was Insurance there? I pay for my house insurance in one payment every year, and I had to pay it last month. This month it will be big again, because I have to pay my car insurance as well. I also have on going Life Insurance costs that come up for my wife and myself (that was 9% of my spending).

Commuting, is actually the cost of bus passes for my daughters to be able to go to school, so that is not an insignificant amount of capital spent either.

Financial Oddities

The money I am paying in mortgage interest costs is only 6% of my expenditures in a month? Wow, that is really not a whole heck of a lot in comparison to say the amount I spend on Groceries (13%). I honestly don’t know if that is good or bad, it’s mostly confusing, I guess. Anyone care to hazard a guess, I am open to interpretations.

I am also putting 5% away in savings of sorts, in comparison to my total expenditures for the month. Since you don’t know how much I spent last month (no I am not saying what that number is), it’s kind of hard to figure out if this is a good or bad amount (it actually isn’t too bad, and I have to keep remembering that one).

Financial Insights

There are areas where spending can be curtailed, and there will be areas where spending will stop for a while too (specifically recreation), so that is a good thing. My guess is the Auto side of things is going to go up with the cost of gas continuing to go up as well.  I think also this is not reflecting debt repayments either (as this is not a category in Quicken) except for specific mortgage interest as a cost basis point. I’ll need to look at that more as well.

Any comments or insights from my readership appreciated.

Yesterday I introduced the topic for the rest of the week, The Cost of Raising Healthy Kids. I naively summarized all that needs to be done into 4 simple categories (no, I am not saying this is all you need to do, but it is easier to write about this way). I will try not to argue the health issues, however, I will argue the financial aspect of these 4 concepts.

Make sure the kids are active at school in sports

When I was a kid, school sports and Gym was where you got in shape and where you stayed in shape. Good things like the Canadian Fitness Test and intramural floor hockey were staples for me to get my exercise during high school and I really enjoyed myself. As has been pointed out a lot of road hockey helped during the summer as well.

Do kids today have this kind of access? Kind of, governments are starting to figure out that maybe it would be good for kids to have Gym more often and make it mandatory for more of their academic career and that I applaud, and think it is a good idea.

Intramural? That depends on whether the school has teachers and/or parents willing to help run these programs, and I would bet there are some schools that either don’t have the equipment or volunteers to do it either.

In I Thought Public School Was Free? I outlined some of my costs of having kids on the competitive teams at their High School. Now I know at my kids school if there are kids who want to play that can’t afford it, there are attempts to help them out, but the kids’ parents have to be willing to ask for help as well. Having kids in these kind of activities no longer simply consist of buying them a pair of running shoes, it is some major moneys, and that is for school teams.

Sign them up for sports at home in their spare time

I do this for my kids, because I believe that if I left my kids to their own devices, they’d get into trouble (idle hands are the devils work, for lack of a better explanation).

My daughters play basketball, where if they play for in the house league this will cost about $150-$200 (and shoes another $100 or so). Most of these leagues will offer financial help, again if the parents ask for it.

If my girls make competitive teams, now we are going up a level in costs, double the team fees to pay for tournaments, and league dues. Shoes and such are the same cost, however, now they travel out of town 2-5 times over 7 months, where I have to pay to get them there, to stay in a hotel and to feed yourself. I budget at least $1200 for this (per child), which is conservative.

What if my daughters played hockey? In the words of Paulie Walnuts in the Sopranos, “Fugget about it!”, that is another level higher, just for house league, and if my son wants to play, it is even more insane. I won’t quote numbers, because I really don’t know (if anyone cares to comment, please feel free to enlighten, or shock us).

If your child (or children) play more than one sport, this is all additive, remember. Yup the Government has introduced a $500 write off for active kids (per child), which is very welcome, but it does not stop me from spending the money, and $500 is a small portion of the money going out as well.

Yes, I willingly pay this, because I think my kids want to do this (I do ask, “Are you having fun?”, because if they aren’t why am I paying this much money?), and because I think it is important too, but if I didn’t have the money to pay for it, what would my kids be doing?

Tomorrow we tackle:

• Limit their TV and Video Games
• Limit their intake of junk food

I have seen many articles posted lately in the “real” media complaining about obese kids and the implication that it is their parents fault that they are fat. I agree in some ways given that you as a parent should worry if your kid is morbidly obese, or way over weight (also knowing that some kids fill out and then shoot up in height, and there are sometimes extenuating health issues). Parents should most definitely be worried that their kids are not healthy, no argument there.

What I will write about here, is how the “real” media implies that it is a simple case of parents just not trying to get their kids healthy, and the simplest resolution to the problem is:

• Make sure the kids are active at school in sports
• Sign them up for sports at home in their spare time
• Limit their TV and Video Game access
• Limit their intake of snack foods and foods high in sugar and fat

Simple enough, and in an esoteric way, I agree, however, let’s look at this from a financial model.

The question to be answered is: is it cheaper to have healthy kids, or is it more expensive? I’ll give my opinions in the next couple of days.

New Month Coming

September is on the event horizon folks, that means we are in the final third of the year, maybe it is time to revisit your financial plans, and also start thinking about big ticket end of year items that could broadside you if you don’t think of it. What do I mean?

• Christmas, better figure out what you are doing there, or you may as well get a pile of money and burn it.
• When do your insurance policies renew?
• What other yearly payments might come due on January 1? Do you have enough money to pay them?
• How about your RRSP input goals? Reached them yet?
• RESP Goals?
• Savings in General?

A good financial plan is a living, breathing entity, that you must attend to monthly.

House Keeping

I will be out of town for a few days this week so I may miss a day or two this week, my apologies, if I could figure out how to do THIS full time and make a living, I’d gladly do it.