The Fabulously Broke in the City Year 2010 in Review = +$130,101

By
FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com
 – January 7, 2011Posted in: Admin
Happy New Year 2011!
Pic of the day from The Telegraph

THE BLOG: FABULOUSLY BROKE IN THE CITY 2010

(A little Wordle action going on up there)

I feel like I’ve grown so much as a blogger this year. Thanks to everyone out there for making this blog what it is, you’ve made all of the following happen!

This was my original 2009 Year in Review.

2010 GROWTH IN REVIEW

  • Became fluent in French
  • Visited Paris, France and London, England for the first time
  • Moved 19 times in total, in between 4 different cities and 2 provinces
  • Managed to stretch enough to be able to touch my toes. Success!
  • Tried vegan meals for the first time, and now we eat vegetarian 2-3 times a week*
  • Did not shop for clothes or accessories for all of 2010 other than for some pants
  • Turned a year older and am edging closer to 30!

*Miso soup broth with soba noodles, sliced mushrooms and green onions = heavenly

New goals for 2011 can be read here: New Year’s Resolutions — Past, Current and Future

2010 FINANCIAL YEAR IN REVIEW

2010 Budget Roundups and Net Worth Changes

Increases and (Decreases)

Overall a pretty good year.

My net worth went up for the majority of the months, except for January and I think May’s lost budget.

(The Keeper of my Blog Posts. He clearly dropped the ball.)

TOTAL INCOME FOR 2010: $187,485.98

  • This is GROSS income for the most part. NOT NET. I still owe taxes.
  • Worked 9 months out of the year at 7 hours a day
  • Assuming 2000* hours in a year for an average job, I worked 1415** hours of them
  • This means if we average it out on the whole year, I worked about 28.3 hours a week***
  • Freelancing work like writing or consulting is included
  • I don’t count blog earnings of any kind in any of my income
  • BF’s income is also never included in my estimates.
*50 weeks x 40 hours a week = 2000 hours in a typical work year assuming 2 weeks vacation
** 39 weeks x 7 hours x 5 days = 1365 hours + 50 hours of over time = 1415 hours worked
*** 1415 hours / 50 weeks = 28.3 hours a week assuming 2 weeks vacation

TOTAL BUSINESS & PERSONAL EXPENSES FOR 2010: $37,143.81

PERSONAL EXPENSES: $21,284.65

The following chart is just for my PERSONAL expenses.

Original goal was to stay at $20,000 but going about $1300 over isn’t earth shattering.

And now for the excuses 😛

I try to stay around the $1000 budget each month which I’ve done for the most part, but those one-off things like car insurance, car registration costs or travel, doesn’t get factored into my monthly budget.

The last 2 months were also brutal and far above the $1000 estimate.

The problem also came in assuming a low rent, around $300/month which is what we normally pay.

But since I also traveled and worked a lot this year and with a hotel, parking and working costs (even just my personal allocations) in a city you don’t really live in, it just gets expensive.

This year, I’m paying it forward since I had a stellar year, so my real net worth will be 10% less than shown.

Drop it isn’t reflected in my net worth yet because my chequebooks only just arrived (finally!). I can’t believe how many cheques I wrote this year. And the 10%  is in addition to anything earned from the FB Budgeting Sheet.

BUSINESS EXPENSES: $15,859.16

Boring. Not showing a chart for this because you’ll leave this blog and never come back.

The bulk of it around 90% was: hotel, hotel, hotel.

And parking.

TOTAL SAVINGS FOR 2010: $130,100

  • Saved about 68% of my gross income
  • Net is lower but I haven’t paid taxes yet
  • No charitable contributions written yet*
*You will see the drop in January’s roundup

FINAL NET WORTH FOR 2010: $185,355.64

I started the year with $55,254.70 in net worth.

I ended it with $185,355.64.

2010 Increase from 2009: +$130,101 or 235%

TOP 5 CATEGORIES OF SPENDING

I am not including business expenses in here.

I really believe that the top 5 things you spend on in a year in total, is what you consider to be important in life.

If it’s let’s say buying clothes versus rent, then there might be a problem with priorities.

  1. Savings: $130,100 — Includes retirement, emergency.. everything.
  2. Rent: $4735.87 — Need shelter!
  3. Electronics: $3504.20 — WHUT? 🙂 No excuses here. Bought a laptop, cables broke, etc. Guilty as charged.
  4. Groceries: $2928.01 — We kept it down.
  5. Travel: $2673.61 — England and France 🙂

So aside from that atrocious Electronics spending, I’d say I did okay.

HOW I DID COMPARED TO 2009

And this my friends, is why I budget and track my money — so I can compare from year to year.

Here is what 2009 was like for me.

I am not including business expenses in here.


 

Not too shabby.

I spent about $5300 less and I saved about $121,000 more.

Let’s hope 2011 is just as good, if not better.

I can imagine 2011 being more expensive however, seeing as $10,000 is going to that trip. Also, I don’t have any new work lined up.

NET WORTH CHANGE FROM 2009 to 2010

You can also see a lot in the numbers of my net worth from the start of 2009 to the end of 2010:

I tried to keep spending at a minimum a the start and then tried to bank the rest as I made it. It’s why I try not to spend like a rockstar.

I need to save my money for the years when it isn’t so hot.


New Money Goals for 2011

Will be working 2 months and then the gravy train stops

Contract is done at the end of February, so the rest of the year will be my oyster to travel, lounge around, blog some more…

Stay around $1000 – $1500/month in my budget for personal stuff

This seems like a good number that isn’t out of reach or too restrictive.

Still struggling with that one-off thing where I pay car insurance or registration in full, rather than averaging it out over the months.

So I’ll just keep doing what I did in 2010.

Spend only $10,000 on Asia

I’ll try and control myself from eating my way across the continent and to be 20 pounds heavier at the end. 😛

Hit $250,000 net worth

If possible. Not sweating if I don’t.

Money is meant to be spent. Not hoarded.

On to blog stuff!

2009 looked like this:

2010 looks like this:

That stupid pending comment won’t disappear. 🙁

I somehow lost a lot of posts. Like 1000 worth.

I didn’t even delete that many, but something screwed up on my blog and my posts and comments disappeared. *sigh*

No worries. 2011 will be better 🙂

WHAT IS MY BLOG WORTH?

Not that I’d ever sell it but here are some stats.

All over the gat damn place, eh? 🙂

The real price is .. priceless. I love writing on here.

MY TOP 10 REFERRERS

  1. Give me back my five bucks
  2. An Urban Missy
  3. Me in Millions
  4. Frugal Scholar
  5. Well-Heeled Blog
  6. Out of Money Experience
  7. Saving 4 Later
  8. In a Moment
  9. The Asian Pear
  10. Punch Debt in the Face

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

WHAT ARE MY BLOG RANKINGS?

I always check out Money Crasher’s Page Rankings. They do all the work for me.

Here’s mine, #143:

I use MozRank not Google Page Rank, therefore Website Grader is the best tool out there to give you a summary of everything.

The website www.fabulouslybroke.com ranks 20,619 of the 3,120,547 websites that have been ranked so far.

A website grade of 99/100 for www.fabulouslybroke.com means that of the millions of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 99% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness.

My MozRank is 5/10:

If my blog were a country:

As for my Twitter account @brokeinthecity, Website Grader tells you about it too and the account ranks at 99/100 as well:

The year ended very well for me.

I am racing like a Hoverball Cat towards 2011 🙂

http://cuteoverload.com/2011/01/01/top-ten-photos-of-2010/

This 2011 is the year I’d like to:

And possibly…

  • Visit NYC again (if the bedbug epidemic is done)
  • Keep tabs on my shopping; no more bans but I want to be careful
  • Really review all my things again and cut 25% of it
  • Hit $250,000 in net worth if I can
  • Stay out of debt 😉 <— I kid, I kid. 🙂

How did your 2010 go?

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About the Author

Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver. I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year. Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about my story here, or visit my other blog: The Everyday Minimalist.