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. 

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.

Shopping Insurance

COVID had gotten me more motivated to shape up financially in case the impact expanded to my employment. To date I have not been negatively impacted financially but others around me have been.

Telecommute has been extended a few weeks at a time, the most recent extension takes me through September. I was not surprised by this and at current rate don't see any sort of partial return to the office before Thanksgiving. This resurfaced the thought of how little I am driving. My mileage was already comparatively low but with telecommute I am only using the car one or two days a week. I have driven a total of 3,000 miles in the past six months due to working from home. The slight premium rebate the insurers provided in the spring was a nice gesture but in the grand scheme of things a drop in the bucket.

I started by calling my current insurer, Progressive, and asking to rework the assumptions about my driving habits. This request was repeatedly interpreted as wanting to change my coverage which I strongly disagreed with. I spent about an hour after this unsuccessful call shopping auto insurance. I found that in an apples to apples comparison I already had the best price I could find mostly due to a minor fender bender I had last year. What I did discover is that Progressive has collision and comprehensive deductible options other insurers don't. I had not wanted to change coverage but the deductible pricing made it attractive.

When I started this shopping quest I had a $500 deductible on both comprehensive and collision. I found that by increasing my deductible by $250, to $750, my six month premium would drop by $73 or approximately a third of the additional liability I would be assuming. I haven't had a history of filing claims every 18 months so I am likely well ahead on this change. I had also priced the $1000 deductibles and found that the premium reductions for this $250 jump were significantly less than the first $250 increase. Annualized savings of $146 for taking the $750 deductible. I will likely eventually be increasing the deductible to $1000 but want to build up a separate savings to cover this deductible so if I need to claim, it won't be such a financial speed bump.