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my husband, for his suggestion that I use Quicken to write a Christmas letter.

Ok, so it wasn’t literally a suggestion that I use Quicken to write a Christmas letter. He suggested that I go back through Quicken for the year to jog my memory about some of the things we’ve done, since doing things often involves spending money. (I already had the big ones down, but questions like “did we do that home improvement project this year, or was that last year?” were going unanswered. Not that those made it into the letter anyway, but I was curious.)

So I took a stroll through financial memory lane. Along the way, I got completely distracted and began comparing expenditures and spending categories. I was surprised to see that I barely bought any physical items for myself this year other than clothes. (I’m making an exception for clothes, since most of our clothes were gone for 2 months.) I bought: two windows, some Girl Scout cookies, an encaustic art kit, a digital sound level meter, a book, a pan, vitamins, Venetian glass, an ornament, 30 printed photos, a bottle of lotion, and a phone. That’s one item per month on average.

Our top 5 spending categories for the year were:

1. Investments
2. Housing (which includes additional payments to the mortgage)
3. Taxes
4. Travel
5. Business expenses

I’m pretty happy with that order too, although taxes being that high was kind of a fluke. For next year I’d like to reduce business expenses and increase investments.

Now I guess I’d better finish up that Christmas letter…