DuckSouth.com

every year when tax time rolls around I prepare our return @ 99% of the way and in conjunction with this I download all our transactions from our bank(s) for the year and analyze/categorize the amounts (mostly because I am a dork when it comes to this kind of stuff)...some highlights for me (family of three) in 2008

1. our family managed to saved @ 10% (budget) of our income in 2008 outside of comapny sponsored retirements

2. family of three spent a total of $612.00 in Wal Mart last year (most proud here)

3. despite avoiding Wal Mart (and all their low costs) we kept our food and gas bill for the year to @ 13% (budget) even with $4.00 gas

4. our charitable contributions increased @ 25% over last year, but were still a bit short of our 10% (budget) goal, we hit 8% (room for improvement)

do any of you here do this type of analysis? annual budget? just curious?

the doc

I dont ............but you can donate that 2% that you fell short on charitable contributions to the

"Mckinion needs a new handle of Old Charter fund"...............we are a charitable non profit organization and will share some of the brown water with anyone that wants a litle every Friday starting at 3:30

writing the check now

the doc

not to outdo you, but my family of 4 spent ZERO in Wal Mart and Sams. That makes me happy.

Duckdawg10 wrote:not to outdo you, but my family of 4 spent ZERO in Wal Mart and Sams. That makes me happy.

glad to be outdone by that

and for the record I think there is a direct correlation between not going there and having even a little bit of extra money

the doc

Yeah I do the same and I about puked at the outcome.

My gas bill kicked our but this year.

However I also have you beat at Wal-Mart/Sams. That has been 0 for the past six years (VERY PROUD OF THAT), and on top of that I now have a rule that nothing is allowed in the house or camp that came from Wal-Mart.