2019 Financial Review: $54,906.02 Spent & Net Worth +6.94%

This is my fourth year of writing an annual financial review. In 2016 we spent $47,566.96 CAD and our net worth grew by +34.4%; in 2017 we spent $51,144.77 CAD and our net worth grew by + 8.65%; in 2018 we went over the top and spent $57,231.99 CAD and our net worth grew by +2.83%. Oddly enough, I was really looking forward to writing the 2019 financial review. Not because I’m a nut-head but because this kind of reviews help us understand where we are on our financial independence journey. The annual financial reviews also keep us honest and accountable. I also happen to believe this kind of post helps to provide readers with some ideas of what it’s like to live in a high cost of living city like Vancouver.

Please keep in mind, while we live in Vancouver, one of the most expensive cities in the world, we only own one car, and we are a single income family. At 6 years old and 3 years old, our kids are still relatively young and younger kids probably don’t cost as much teenagers (i.e. they eat less and only have fewer extracurricular activities). Our grocery cost may be higher than some since we try to purchase organic food as much as we can.

Our Budget System

Before going into the details, I just want to go over the budget system that we use. We started using our current budget system in mid-2011. Thanks to the budget system, our net worth has increased quite significantly. Each month we break down our after-tax income into 6 different accounts and allocate a certain percentage for each account.

  • Necessities/Core Expenses (55%)
  • Education (10%)
  • Play (10%)
  • Financial Freedom Account (10%)
  • Long Term Savings for Spending (10%)
  • Give (5%)

The percentages listed above are the default suggested values. Over the years we have adjusted all of these numbers to suit our needs. Our necessities percentage is now significantly lower than 55%.

2019 Total Spending: $54,906.02 CAD

In 2019 we spent a total of $54,906.02 CAD or $42,128.29 USD (at 1 CAD: 0.77 USD exchange rate). This number excludes any business-related expenses. As you may recall, Mrs. T and I have a few side businesses; I have a photography business, this blog costs some money to operate, Mrs. T and I have our cookbook business, and Mrs. T has a few other business projects like her doula services and her self-help book.

At over $50k annual spending for a family of four, I will be the first one to admit this is extremely frugal. Although we’ve found our balance between saving for the future and spending to enjoy the present moment, I believe some further optimization can be done. Mrs. T and I will go through our 2019 annual spending and see what we can do to improve for 2020.

Here’s a summary of all the numbers since 2012

Total Necessities SpendingNecessities Spending per MonthTotal Annual SpendingTotal Spending per Month
2012$26,210.52$2,184.21$44,603.76$3,716.98
2013$26,343.00$2,195.25$45,260.88$3,771.74
2014$29,058.96$2,421.58$47,391.96$3,949.33
2015$31,256.88$2,604.74$47,270.16$3,939.18
2016$29,831.40$2,485.95$4,7566.96$3,963.91
2017$33,887.68$2,823.97$51,144.77$4,262.06
2018$31,840.75$2,653.40$57,231.99$4,769.33
2019$33,199.98$2,766.66$54,906.02$4,575.50

Note: These numbers do not include money that went into our FFA and LTSS accounts. These numbers also do not include money that we added toward our investment portfolio. The numbers only represent money that we actually spent.

At one point I thought we could end up around $50,000 CAD or $38,500 USD in annual spending, but we ended up being almost $5,000 over that target. Oh well, hopefully we can do better in 2020.

Having said that, it was nice to see that our overall spending decreased by ~$2,300 compared to 2018. 2018 was definitely a high spending year, so I was pleased to see a decrease in our 2019 spending.

If we could stay below $30,000 CAD in necessities a year that would be totally awesome (we’re off by ~$3,200). It is definitely a challenge to do so with a family of four though.

A few ideas we can try in 2020 to reduce our necessities spending:

  • Continue to reduce our meat consumption.
  • Try to price match when we shop for groceries.
  • Be more efficient when it comes to hydro, heating, and water.
  • Walk more rather than driving.

Deep Dive into the 2019 Numbers

Taking a closer look at the 2019 spending numbers. Here are what I found:

  • We spent $2,766.66 CAD or $2,122.80 USD in necessities per month. We managed to spend $1,359.23 more in necessities in 2019 compared to 2018. This corresponds to $113.27 per month.
  • We spent $747.94 per month on groceries in 2019 compared to $714.98 per month in 2018. That’s about $30 more per month or $360 for the year. Mrs. T spent about eight months having fresh organic celery juice in the morning which increased our grocery bills. But this was somewhat offset by the self-grown produce during the summer. We also ate less meat throughout 2019 which helped to reduce our grocery spending. For 2020, we will continue to find ways to reduce our grocery bills while still eating healthy & nutritious foods.
  • Utility expenses like natural gas and hydro were more or less the same compared to 2018. Water spending went up by ~$9 per month at $34.40 per month, probably because we watered the veggie garden more during the summer in 2019.
  • We spent $96.32 on internet and phone. My work paid for my cellphone plan. We are on a two year contract with Shaw for our internet. I will have to phone Shaw in late 2020 to negotiate for a new internet package.
  • Education spending went up slightly in 2019 compared to 2018. This was mostly caused by Baby T2.0 starting preschool two days a week. We also signed both kids up for classes and camps throughout the year. Since next year Baby T2.0 will be going to preschool three days a week, we expect the education spending in 2020 to be higher than 2019.
  • We spent about the same amount in Give account as 2018. Although we are working toward financial independence, we are donating money to charities each month to help people in need.
  • Given that we travelled to Japan, Taiwan, New York, and Denmark, and had a few staycations in 2018, we spent quite a bit of money on travelling (LTSS) and eating out (Play). The travelling experiences we had were memorable and I wouldn’t trade them away. Therefore, they were money well spent. However, we may examine our Play expenses and see if we could cut back eating out a bit in 2020.

Some Random 2019 Numbers

Now I have gone through some serious numbers, here are some random (and possibly fun) numbers in 2019.

Fitness

  • Number of steps taken: 4,182,423 (~11,458 per day, ignoring days I didn’t wear my Fitbit).
  • Distance walked: 3,181.64 km
  • Highest number of steps in a day: 40,600.
  • Total distance swam: 106.6 km or 66.24 miles.

I also had my 2 minutes of fame in 2019 as I appeared on CBC for a story on angry Fitbit customers.

Travels

  • Countries visited: USA, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Spain, France, Finland.
  • Number of flights taken: 46.
  • Number of hours in the air: 147.03 hours (that’s over 6 days… OH MY GOD!!!)
  • New Countries visited: Finland.
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Taipei night market.

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When in Osaka…

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One of my favourite areas in Shanghai.

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Another week another country visited.

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Look daddy a transformer dinosaur!!!

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Blog

  • Number of blog posts published: 72
  • Top visiting country: Canada eh (60.65%)
  • New vs. Return: 53.7% vs. 46.3%.

Net Worth: + 6.94% in 2019

When I started blogging, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t publish our actual net worth number for privacy reasons. Since I no longer blog anonymously anymore, not publishing our actual net worth becomes even more important. Therefore, I will share our net worth increase in percentages instead.

In 2019 our net worth increased by 6.94%. We saw a nice increase in our investment portfolio, but we saw a decrease in our house assessment value. Thanks to regulations and rules that BC government put forth in the last couple of years, the BC housing market has cooled somewhat and this was reflected in the property assessment values. The BC Assessment showed that Metro Vancouver property values tumbled by up to 15%. Our house assessment value dropped by ~4%. Although it’s not nice to see a drop as it reflects in our net worth calculation, a drop in assessment value is actually welcomed as this should decrease our property tax for 2020.

In case you’re wondering, I have found using Wealthica is a great way to track our net worth and portfolio. If you don’t want to bother with a big Excel spreadsheet, I’d recommend checking out Wealthica.

Besides, housing assessment and market performance are not something we can control. We can, however, take simple steps to make sure a continued growth of our net worth.

Growing Our Net Worth

There’s really no secret when it comes to ways for growing our net worth. We keep it pretty simple and easy for the most part by following these steps:

  • We maximize our RRSPs every year.
  • We maximize our TFSAs every year.
  • We maximize kids’ RESPs every year.
  • We try to invest as much money as possible in taxable accounts once we maximize tax-advantaged accounts.
  • We DRIP our dividend income whenever we can.
  • We re-invest 100% of our dividend income.
  • Income from side hustles goes straight to FFA for investing in stocks and other appreciating assets.
  • We try to ruthlessly cut expenses on things that we don’t enjoy spending money on.
  • We spend money on things that we enjoy. Like food and travels.

Since started our FI journey, we’ve continued to follow these simple steps every single year. Now 10 years into our FI journey, the numbers show that we are doing quite well financially. Therefore, we will continue to do these simple steps in 2020 – earn money, budget, save, and invest. There’s no need to make things more complicated than necessary when these simple steps are already working extremely well for us.

Financial Independence Progress

In 2019, our dividend portfolio continued to generate passive income for us. As a result, we received $23,049.16 in dividend income at the end of 2019. This accounts for 69.4% of our necessities and 41.98% of our annual spending.

Our goal was to hit a 50% dividend income to annual spending ratio for 2019. We didn’t manage to hit this ratio, but we came close. For 2020, it is my hope that we can end up with a dividend income to an annual spending ratio greater than 50%. We will continue to focus on growing our net worth and get one step closer to becoming financially independent.

2019 has been a great year for us. Here’s to an excellent, exciting, joyful, and healthy 2020!

Dear readers, how was your 2019? What was your annual spending? Did your net worth increase like ours?

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23 thoughts on “2019 Financial Review: $54,906.02 Spent & Net Worth +6.94%”

  1. Great read and congrats on getting closer to your goals.

    Funny I stumbled on this about fitbit. I bought my spouse a charge3 as she loved her charge2 and figures an upgrade good.

    It always had trouble synching (compared to the flawless charge2) and time slowed on it a month or so ago and no longer charged after having it 14 months. As it was past warranty by 2 months, nothing they could do but send 25% off coupon. 200$ for a watch (or any electronic) to last 14 months is very poor and reading online comments and yours, seems they don’t stand by their product unless you threaten them with the media.

    Oh well, lucky for CC extended warranties.

    Reply
  2. Thanks Bob for the 2019 annual expenses and net worth update. We are a family of 3 and it’s always good to see expenses of other families in Vancouver region.

    2019 was a big year for us. Single largest expense was related to our townhouse purchase in metro Vancouver towards end of the year. Excluding this, our annual expense came at around $56,500. Approx. 64% of expense is related to basic living expenses (rent+utilities, groceries, daycare, car insurance and misc. living expenses) and others related to recreation / travel. Expenses dropped by around $4k from 2018 (drop in daycare expenses). In terms of Net Worth we saw a 26% increase in 2019.

    In 2020, we will not have rent and after adjusting for property tax, strata fee, insurance, maintenance cost, etc. we should see our basic living expenses drop below $30k. ‘Growing our net worth’ plan is almost same as yours except that we just invest in index funds.

    By the way…great pictures!

    Reply
  3. Nice progress. I’m doing better investing but budgeting for expenses has been a major problem. I like your simple system. Perhaps I will try it this year so I’m not so worried about mounting expenses. I recently had a child for the first time and I’m struggling to stay under budget as my overall expenses increase (living off of 1 income). The fact you do so well with 2 young children is an inspiration for me. Thanks for the update and good luck in 2020!

    Reply
  4. Great post Bob, and great job! So many countries you visited, I am jealous!!

    Does the annual expenses/ spending include a mortgage payment? I have yet to look at our annual expenses, it would be interesting to see. Seems like in Canada $50-60K for a family of four is about right.

    Reply
  5. Hi Bob,

    Congratulations for the achievement. I used numbeo to check the cost of living comparison and your annual expenditure is very good :). I’m very impressed on how you manage to travel so much in such a budget. I wish to reach this level someday.

    Here at Odysseus’ Household our expenses were out of control, almost reaching €50k. Our net worth grew by 35%…one of the advantages of being in the early stages.

    I wish you success on the 50% of expenses covered by passive income. I can imagine how grateful it will be to you.

    All the best.

    Cheers!

    Reply
  6. Hi Bob, Do your expenses include mortgage payments, or do you have your house paid off already? How does/did paying off your house fit into your financial priorities? Although mortgage rates are fairly low, I’m looking forward to having our mortgage paid off to eliminate that expense.

    Reply
  7. Tawcan –

    Nice job, overall. A decrease from prior to current year, with experiencing THAT much of life is incredible. I’d like to see you challenge yourself to 50,000 by just negotiating and shifting how things are being consumed without jeopardizing quality of life. Any specific area where you can focus??

    -Lanny

    Reply
  8. Thanks for posting this Bob. Excellent as always. I wish the new Picard show was half as inspirational as your spending habits.

    Reply
  9. we had a spendy year, bob, at around 60k usd. about 20k was a big house renovation and car replacement so we don’t expect that too many times in the future. realistically 40k should fund our lives pretty comfortably with plenty of good food and wine and a couple of plane trips.

    i’m surprised y’all can keep it so low in an expensive place. well done.

    Reply
  10. Hey Bob,

    That was a neat read into your 2019 numbers.

    Our 2019 expenses finished less than $100 compared to our 2018 numbers. Somehow it just worked out that way, that we had a very consistent year in terms of our spend.

    A metric I like to track is YoY in Dividend Income growth vs YoY increases in expenditures. We finish 2019 with a net positive return of $1700. Meaning our dividends outgrow our expenses by 1700 🙂

    -DGX Capital

    Reply

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