January Look Ahead

 Still making the final entries on my 2020 spend tracking so don't have those totals yet. 

I enjoyed the December preview so thought I would do another for January. In theory it should be harder to reduce spend here as I had January 2019 spend to compare and should have made the easy choices last year. 

My home insurance is due in January. I made changes midway through 2020 and got a small refund, the premium payable in January 2021 does indeed remain less than last year's payment. That would be a big $10 that stays in my wallet. I was hoping for more but ten bucks is still ten bucks.

I had also joined a premium loyalty club at my local brewery last year. I will not be renewing this as COVID is still likely to shadow most of the year and I am trying to reduce my alcohol consumption so not renewing removes an encouragement. $100 saved.

Last year also saw me switch my cellular provider to Verizon. New carrier meant a double bill of $115 last year. Due to still burning Verizon Dollars from the Verizon Visa signup bonus I have several more months where my out of pocket spend will be zero.

Pre-COVID, I was getting monthly massages. My back misses them but my wallet is good staying closed. I also had some social spend that will not be happening as optimistic future travel and event spend. Let's round that to another $200 that will not be happening again.

Increases in spending again looks to only be a trade of quick service work meals for increased grocery spend and the $225 HOA assessment is with me until April.

All in the forecast looks to be $200 in reduced spending year over year. 

December Thoughts

 December 2020 will be the 24th month I have tracked my spending. Two years! And a lot of dollars. 😐

As part of estimating where I will end up for 2020 year end I wanted to look over my December 2019 spend and see what is likely to change.

Savings opportunities I see are approximately $300 in holiday get togethers that won't happen because 2020. About $150 in alcohol purchases for home consumption, I recall this being to load up on Point Pistachio beer not a holiday surge in consumption. I also spent about $150 on work breakfasts and lunches last December, much less opportunity to hit the McDonald's drive thru when there is no commute. 

I also spent $300 on restaurant gift cards last year to claim the holiday bonuses, as of this writing I still have a small balance left on one of those. I will not be buying those this year as I am going out much less and am even less willing to commit cash to a business with a less than stable future. 

Holiday gifting was about $500 last December and for now I am expecting to keep this amount about the same with a few meaningful and useful gifts.

Increased spending is only expected on my association dues, because of a renovation special assessment these are up by $225 over last year for a few more months. It is what it is.

Factor in some increased grocery spend to account for more at home dining and I am going to target a $500 reduction in spend for this month.

December is also when my Chase IHG MasterCard annual fee hits, this is an $89 expense. This is very much a card to have rather than to use so I don't have a comfortable amount of leverage to ask for a fee waiver.  Despite not spending a single night in 2020 at an IHG property I see the free night and other benefits that come with this card as worth the fee. $89 in 2019 will be matched by $89 in 2020.

Nearly year end financial roundup

Another quiet weekend at home. I did some tax estimates and also getting caught up on my financial tracking. I started tracking spending on Jan 1 2019 and have logged every penny since. As of this evening my YTD spend is at 80.6% of my full 2019 spend. I still have a few November bills to pay and the full month of December ahead but look safely on track to be 10% or more below last year's spend.

10% would be a significant savings but I was actually hoping for more at the start of the year. 2019 had unexpected high spend on an auto insurance deductible and I had both paid off my the last of student loans and refinanced my mortgage for a significantly smaller payment. 2020 had a significant one off medical spend which more or less balanced the savings.

A portion of my 10% came from gas and food savings from the move to WFH, construction on my building led to several optional socially distanced office days so savings were not what they could have been. I also reshopped my insurance midyear, both home and auto had premium reductions due to changes in coverage. I probably should have done this earlier but WFH made me more comfortable with the increased risk.

Increased costs came from more groceries and I gave in and signed up for Netflix for some low thinking entertainment. I also surprisingly owed on both my federal and state returns. I do not track payroll tax withholding as an expense, only the settle up payments in the spring so this unbalanced the numbers. This surprise will work out to about 2% of my total 2020 spend.

Travel spending stayed more of less level. I had a winter getaway in February and had purchased several flights that I did not take, and am now holding Delta travel credit. Hopefully this is a more significant category in 2021.

A plane! A plane!

    I took my first COVID era flight a few weeks ago. I was uneasy about it but it was a calculated risk. My preparations began with getting some N95 masks and I drove myself to the airport which is a rarity as I generally take transit or rideshare but wanted to limit my bubble. The pre-security airport experience was cautious, everyone was keeping their distance and appeared to be following all guidelines on masks and personal hygiene. 

    Security was a breeze due to the limited number of travelers and my PreCheck status. I did have to unmask for TSA to verify me identify. There was some confusion on my part, to limit contact boarding passes are self scanned but the TSA still needs to handle the ID. One of these articles will be disposed of by most after the flight and the other carried for years. I still don't get the logic there but alas it is TSA. 

    Post security things became less comforting. Support staff chatting in an empty gate area without masks and a true asshole that thought he did not need a mask as he had the secret idol of a cup of coffee in his hand. No coffee was consumed in the several gates that I had to follow said asshole. I was surprised to see my boarding gate was as full as it was, from the seat map the night before I assumed there would be about 30 passengers on the A320. Many others had the same idea I did, buy basic economy as it fully changeable and there are no middle seats. 

    Coffee asshole turned out to be on my flight a few rows ahead of me. Delta in flight service was a snack bag with a bottle of water and various snacks, the exact selection left to chance. Ideally, there would have been no service. The proffered water resulted in most of the cabin unmasking immediately to consume it. Additional bottles were offered later in the flight. Deplaning was surprisingly done orderly per instructions to depart front to back and wait for those ahead to clear the plane. I was quite happy to get off the plane and out of the airport and demask for fresh air for the first time in 6 hours.

Auf Wiedersehen Oktoberfest

This week I cancelled another trip due to COVID.

Annually I go Oktoberfest Zinzinnati, the largest Oktoberfest outside of Munich. I have gone every year but one for the past 15 years, 2020 will be the second I miss. As of this posting the event has not officially cancelled but I do not see how it can go off safely. Given how certain I thought I was of my attendance I took advantage of the travel recession in March to book my hotel and flights.

I was able to book my return flight using an AAdvantage web saver at 6,000 miles at the time that trip was pricing just under $200. I was not able to find an acceptable combination of schedule and price mileage itinerary on the outbound but did manage to buy a Delta nonstop at the lowest price I had ever observed on the route. I had also booked the Hilton Netherland Plaza using points about a year out as I refuse to pay Cincinnati's 21% hotel tax. Thanks to dynamic pricing I was able to cancel and rebook the same room this spring at lower pandemic pricing.

Cancelling reservations was a smooth experience. Hilton was well before the cancellation window so going from reservation to available points only took a few clicks. The Delta flight was booked using a gift card I got at Costco last year so I knew there would no refund, only a travel credit. I was able to cancel the American flight via Twitter DM. Miles were redeposited within an hour of the request and a promise the $5.60 security fee will make it back to my credit card. I would have much rather had a safe Oktoberfest experience but under the circumstances I'll take a hassle and penalty free cancellation.