# Blackhill family expenses



## MrBlackhill (Jun 10, 2020)

I'm personally not sure of the goal of tracking a net worth evolution publicly on a forum as I believe it's hard to relate since it depends on income and many other things.

I believe an interesting point of discussion though is the lifestyle choices driven by expenses and everyone can relate to it because someone making $200k/year could decide to have the lifestyle of someone making $50k/year. The other way around may not be true though if that person making $200k/year chose to increase its lifestyle, but if we can see the expenses in each category, so we can relate to how much more or how much less that person is spending.

So this is what I'll do and maybe it'll start some discussions. No monthly or quarterly update, just a detailed summary of our yearly expenses.

I won't put the housing expenses because I don't want to get into the buy vs rent debate and I want to put only numbers that everyone can relate to and easily compare.

A bit of context; me and my wife put all of our income together into a joint account. We've agreed on a fixed monthly amount that gets sent to each of our personal accounts for personal expenses. The great majority of our expenses are charged on the joint account. Most of the money sent to my personal account ends up in investments. I don't track my personal expenses as it's less than $2,000/year. That's for cell phone, clothes, haircut, personal activities & subscriptions, etc.

Here's the results for 2022. Totals for the year, rounded to the 10. Family of 2 adults and 1 baby/toddler living in Montreal.

Groceries: $8,600
Electricity: $1,360
Internet: $570
House insurance: $1,200
Life insurance: $630
Car maintenance: $790
Car & motorcycle insurance: $860
Car registration: $270
Car gas: $800
Activities: $550
Netflix: $220
Home appliances & accessories: $790
Garden: $390
Halloween: $60
Vacation: $3,580
Unexpected expenses: $790
Untracked expenses: $2,390
Gifts: _Private_
*Subtotal: $23,850*

Daycare: $7,600 (for 8 months)
Kid's tracked expenses: $3,450
*Subtotal: $11,050

Total: $34,900*

There's a motorcycle expense going on the joint account because we pay a single bill to insure both vehicles, but otherwise the motorcycle expenses are on my personal account. I'm actually in the process of selling it as I haven't used it for a while now.

I noticed there's a lot of untracked expenses and I'll have to improve it. That's due to some bills that I or my wife paid which were a mix of different types of expenses and the receipt wasn't kept and the merchant name is not enough information to categorize.

Note that I didn't provide any income source, only the expenses. About 75%-80% of the daycare expenses will be payed back to us by the Quebec government. Then there's also the Canada Child Benefit and the Quebec Family Allowance.

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Expected maximum expenses for 2023.

Groceries: $10,000
Electricity: $2,400
Internet: $660
House insurance: $1,400
Life insurance: $630
Public transport: $720
Car maintenance: $800
Car insurance: $500
Car registration: $270
Car gas: $1,200
Activities: $600
Netflix: $240
Home appliances & accessories: $600
Garden: $500
Halloween: $200
Vacation: $5,000
Unexpected expenses: $1,000
Untracked expenses: $0
Gifts: _Private_
*Subtotal: $26,720*

Daycare: $11,000
Kid's expenses: $4,000
*Subtotal: $15,000

Total: $41,720*


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## jlunfirst (1 mo ago)

MrBlackhill said:


> I'm personally not sure of the goal of tracking a net worth evolution publicly on a forum as I believe it's hard to relate since it depends on income and many other things.
> 
> I believe an interesting point of discussion though is the lifestyle choices driven by expenses and everyone can relate to it because someone someone making $200k/year could decide to have the lifestyle of someone making $50k/year. The other way around may not be true though if that person making $200k/year chose to increase its lifestyle, but if we can see the expenses in each category, so we can relate to how much more or how much less that person is spending.
> 
> ...


1 of my Toronto sisters, when her 3 children were still young, she felt her full-time net salary was 80% going towards daycare and after school activities. 
Kids now in their 20's living away from home.


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## AlwaysMissingTheBoat (8 mo ago)

$1,360 for electricity last year? Colour me envious! How do you achieve that? Is it based on solar panels, in which case you had significant up-front cost? Or perhaps the panels were already installed on your home when you purchased it?

I haven't tracked out power bill for the full year, but I would estimate we pay about $225 per month on the low end and up to $600 per month during the coldest months. That's based on primary heat/cooling from a heat pump (or mini-split, if you prefer). We have electric baseboards as backup, but we try to keep them from kicking in. We're in a 5-bedroom bungalow, but two of those bedrooms are unoccupied in the basement.

Now, I come out slightly ahead on groceries since you're at $717 per month. Our grocery bills have definitely climbed with inflation, but we still keep it around $600 or less. However, we're a household of two. No kids. But we do have two large dogs. If you throw in expenses for dog food and treats (which come from pet stores, not the grocery store, then we're more than $800 per month).


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## off.by.10 (Mar 16, 2014)

Why do you expect your electricity bill to jump by 75%?



AlwaysMissingTheBoat said:


> $1,360 for electricity last year? Colour me envious! How do you achieve that?


I don't know about him specifically but electricity is pretty cheap in Quebec and the Montreal area doesn't usually get very cold very long. A row house with good insulation should easily achieve that. Mine's detached and came in at $1530 last year. I have lots of sunshine but heating is all electric baseboard.


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## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

Wildly lower than our combined natural gas and electrical cost for 2022 which was $4761 in about equal shares. We do have a larger house with a large A/C load in summer plus pool and hot tub operations.


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## ian (Jun 18, 2016)

The things that paid off in the long term and enabled us to retire early.

-Major emphasis on paying down our mortgage from 25 years to 12 years. Switching from monthly to bi-weekly, continually decreasing the amortization period...especially when the renewal interest rate decreased. Extra lump sum payment every year from employee stock purchase plan sale.

-No consumer credit. If we could not afford we either did not buy or went with used.

-Kept our cars in good working order and drove them for years...taking advantage of much lower depreciation rates and no financing charges. Purchased more expensive import models vs domestic offerings.

-Shopping for value, not price.

-Shopping/confirming large dollar items like home insurance, car insurance, etc at renewal time

-Reviewing monthly communication costs and keeping a look out for competitive offers.

-Buying large amounts of very low cost term insurance through employee benefits vs whole life or any combinations thereof.

-RSP/Spousal RSP

-Took advantage of any and all employer matching options.

-Investing carefully.

-Lots of other living expenses were either a given or items we were not prepared to change.

-Costco/Price Club were our go to for many items.


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## MrBlackhill (Jun 10, 2020)

AlwaysMissingTheBoat said:


> $1,360 for electricity last year? Colour me envious! How do you achieve that? Is it based on solar panels, in which case you had significant up-front cost? Or perhaps the panels were already installed on your home when you purchased it?


Many reasons for that.


I live in Quebec, electricity is cheap.
In Montreal, we get about 5 months of snow, but temperatures like -30°C happen only about 5-10 days per winter, otherwise we are usually between -5°C and -15°C.
Our apartment is only about 900 sq.ft.
I live in a row of duplexes, so only two of my walls are facing the exterior. The walls on each side are shared with my neighbors. Since it's a duplex and I live on the first floor, then I have tenants living above me so I'm not the one losing heat through the roof. I also have a basement. So it's almost like people living in condos who have only one wall facing the exterior.
I fully renovated my apartment, so it's brand new electricity, brand new heating systems, brand new insulation for the walls facing the exterior. (Fun fact: the walls weren't even insulated, it was only wooden walls before the layer of bricks, nothing else!)
Also, my 2022 bills were estimated based on my 2020-2021 consumption which were low due to 7 months of renovations so I think I was billed a bit less than my actual consumption



off.by.10 said:


> Why do you expect your electricity bill to jump by 75%?


My 2022 bills were estimated based on my 2020-2021 consumption which were low due to 7 months of renovations so I think I was billed a bit less than my actual consumption. Also, we added an A/C during the renovations and we started using it recently to keep the temperature at no more than 24°C during the summer, so we use it about 2-3 months.

But the main reason is actually that we now have a "roomer" living in our basement which is not renovated and we fully furnished it with an old refrigerator, an old stove and an old microwave. And mainly because he's from Africa and he heats the basement at about 27°C. I guess he has the heating on for about 8-9 months a year, as opposed to us heating 4 months a year at 21°C. I mean, we feel our floor is hot over the place were he lives, it's as if we had heated floor!

Basically, our personal consumption is certainly a bit above $1,360 per year, but definitely below $2,400 per year, but with someone living in the fully furnished basement and heating 27°C, we've recently had a monthly adjustment to $190/month for the year instead of $107/month for last year.


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## afulldeck (Mar 28, 2012)

AlwaysMissingTheBoat said:


> $1,360 for electricity last year? Colour me envious! How do you achieve that? Is it based on solar panels, in which case you had significant up-front cost? Or perhaps the panels were already installed on your home when you purchased it?


As he stated he lives in Quebec. Ontario and other provinces are roughly 2X the cost charged by Quebec. 
sourceElectricity Rates by Province)


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## Dilbert (Nov 20, 2016)

^Not sure that is an apples to apples comparison. At least for Ontario, one needs to factor in time of use for those on a smart meter.


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## afulldeck (Mar 28, 2012)

Dilbert said:


> ^Not sure that is an apples to apples comparison. At least for Ontario, one needs to factor in time of use for those on a smart meter.


Only if you choose that option...but that chart comes from Ontario Hydro...


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## Dilbert (Nov 20, 2016)

^Um, there is no option.
Resistance is futile…..


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## afulldeck (Mar 28, 2012)

Dilbert said:


> ^Um, there is no option.
> Resistance is futile…..


If you say so ---- but you would be wrong. 

The province is not uniform. Kingston has tier or time of use pricing Utilities Kingston: All Your Utilities Under One Roof


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

AltaRed said:


> Wildly lower than our combined natural gas and electrical cost for 2022 which was $4761 in about equal shares. We do have a larger house with a large A/C load in summer plus pool and hot tub operations.


I paid at least double that in the US without pool/hot tub and it was increasing every year. I also used smart thermostats and kept very reasonable temps

Now back in Canada I pay much less for heat/electricity but overall other things balance it out. Insurance for example varies wildly by location

Quebec had insanely cheap electricity. They heat their homes with inefficient baseboards because it's so cheap (thanks to Labrador)


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## Dilbert (Nov 20, 2016)

We have no option here in Mississauga. It’s TOU or nothing. Nonetheless it would skew the data in the table.


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

$6,250 here in northern Alberta for Gas and Hydro in 2022.... 

I'm on the "market" rate plan, instead of fixed. Probably lost $2000 this year by not being on a fixed rate - oops.


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## Retiredguy (Jul 24, 2013)

Our Vancouver area home. 3 level about 2800 sq ft. Just my wife and I. Fortis gas and BC Hydro . about 1000 each for 2022.


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## prisoner24601 (May 27, 2018)

Nova Scotia 3500 sqft all electric home plus hot tub and large heated garage/workshop. Home is 2-levels. Just myself and wife. In 2022 we consumed $2,800 without solar. On-site solar generated $2,300 credit so net cost was about $550.


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