Money

There is a saying that where your money is....there your heart is. For the past year I have been tracking my spending to see where all my money go's. I came up with a few surprises.

Number one on the list.....Housing? Food? Nope Taxes!!!!! Yep, 24.33% of my money went to paying state and federal taxes. (That does not include any sales tax. That would be impossible to track.) That was quite a surprise to me. Paying for wars and bailouts is not a priority for me, but schools and parks.....I'm a little conflicted.

Second on the list was savings (13.81%). This is not much of a surprise to me because I am on an aggressive savings track to buy my first home. Although, when I think about it, the general rule of thumb is to save 10% of your take home pay. I feel that I have gone to some great lengths to get to 13% it's no wonder that most Americans have little savings.

Third, rent 12.92%. I am a little surprised by this number. Living in Boston, I thought it would be higher.

Fourth, giving 9.78% I was hoping this would be a little higher. Something I need to work on.

Everything else was under 7% . This brings some perspective to things like retirement, travel, and entertainment. When budgeting and tracking I tend to be obsessive about these sort of things when in reality they make up very little of my spending.