Ah yes! After having read through (or not) a 2000+ word post on my personal 2012 in review, I’m sure you’re excited for this — my 2012 financial year in review!
I spent under $15 000. I am officially awesome.
The final tally comes in at…… $14 957.79 or an average of $1 246.48 per month. This includes travel and blog expenses but does not include tuition or the $437 that I paid the dentist last week and will be reimbursed for in the New Year. 
Although I wanted to keep my spending under $15 000, I did have an even smaller, although less pressing, budget of $13 481. I was about $1 500 over budget on this is — about the equivalent to what I spent on non-budgeted expenses like travel and my blog.
In terms of income, I earned $1 060 more than I had accounted for — including $3 900 in miscellaneous income (side jobs, interest, tips etc) which made up for the $4 500 shortfall in expected income from when I quit my money-counting job in May.
Overall, I saved almost 16% of my after-tax income (not including tuition) but my net worth went down 14% (by magic!? I don’t even know…)
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Wow, congrats on staying under budget and on your extra income. Almost $4K in extra income is really impressive. I’m hoping to bring in at least $2000 in extra income this year.
KK @ Student Debt Survivor recently posted..2012 Wrap-up & Welcome 2013!
I wish I could say that I spent under $15k. I spend that much on my mortgage per year. I really need to re-evaluate my priorities. Thanks for the inspiration!
Grayson @ Debt Roundup recently posted..Setting Goals For My Finances In 2013 + $100 Giveaway
Right on, that’s awesome!
We need to be money BFFs.
mochiandmacarons recently posted..The Ideal Household Budget for Spending
Incredible!!! Way to rock!
[...] Grade 10: By grade 10 I was in a regular, co-ed, public high school and it was time for career planning classes! We had to do an assignment where we researched the average salaries for people who had high school degrees, college degrees, BAs and PhDs as well as the cost of these degrees. This extremely dumbed down exercise made me and the rest of the class realize that we had to go to university in order to earn a decent salary (we, of course, came to this conclusion because it was 2003 and the education bubble was gearing up. Plus a BA was only $4 000 at that point which made it foolish to not get one). I also remember my teacher telling us that we could live comfortably on $20 000 a year and me snickering to myself that $20 000 a year is what “poor people earn” and that I was going to be a lawyer and make $100 000 a year. Oh, how life has changed. [...]