Pants down: yearly spending!

This year: 20k expenses. Shared flat with my GF in Zurich, studied the whole year so no income or taxes.

  • Rent: 7.4k
  • Other Utilities: 600: Internet, Hosting, Phone (prepaid), Serafe
  • Insurance: 2.7k
  • Groceries: 1.9k
  • public Transportation: 1.7k
  • University fees: 1.6k
  • Memberships: 720: We have a yearly membership at the Sauna (a bit over 500.-), which most of our enjoyment budget.
  • Gifts: 300
  • Broker fees: 210: Switched from Cornertrader to IB. IB cost a grand total of 25 of those 210 for a similar amount of transactions.
  • Clothing: 160
  • Other: 2.7k: 2.5k for top-tier beds that will last us for the next decade or three.
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when life was still a bliss :slight_smile:

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yea, 1.2k looks like alot. correcting for that one tailored suit i had made for work, in 2021 i spent CHF 80. 30 for one pair of trousers, rest underwear :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Full days (I don’t see any eating out/student canteen) of food for 2 for 315 chf/month?
How? :exploding_head:

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perhaps grocery means that he cooks for himself?

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Welp… A couple factors: I have an amazing GF that cooks basically every day we’re at home (I do the dishes and we’re both happy with that arrangement), and there’s student life, plus some more things.

  • We visit family often on the week-ends so we don’t have to feed ourselves for one or two days at least every 2nd week.
  • My GF created a weekly food-plan that amounts to 35 CHF per person per week for food. Anyone interested in seeing that? EDIT: Here’s the food plan! Completely vegetarian, and many base materials are from an ethnic store in Oerlikon where you can get bags of dried beans/chickpeas/lentils/… for a very good price (wild guess: 1kg of soaked beans costs a bit over 1 CHF). Seriously, have a look around for non-traditional stores around you; about 20% are really useful to visit occasionally.
  • We receive cash gifts from our combined families to go out eating every one or two weeks for an evening that doesn’t appear in that statistic. Eating out often amounts to using toogoodtogo.ch and our Seven25 (GA after 19:00) to eat in the train, which doesn’t cost much either.
  • We do a lot from scratch. Even cleaning supplies are all put together from raw ingredients. Other household expenses like trash bags or a new soap dish are also in the ‘groceries’ category.
  • It’s not for a total of 52 weeks * 7 days * 3 meals. Grandparents often invite us for a week of holidays in the summer, other family parts invite us for other holidays.
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I would starve to death :rofl:

Mathematically speaking the plan contains enough calories to not starve :wink:

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Ok that’s a proper frugal plan, impressive! :slight_smile:

I’d appreciate seeing that, via a PM perhaps. :slight_smile:

Certainly! Still out of “ordinary” for me.
My groceries for 1 are roughly around 300/month.

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I believe you that it works for you, but it wouldn’t work for me. I’m too much of a meat and raclette lover for this :sweat_smile: In addition feeding our dog for CHF 35 a week is impossible.

Would you mind sharing an example for one week? I’m curious how you get 21 meals for CHF 35.

@CryingSofa
Why PM? Open a new thread, it’s still interesting to read for everyone (if your GF agrees)

Btw, even with meat, I reach similar amounts. The trick is to avoid eating fillet every day. :slight_smile:

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ahah THIS!
My clothing expenses in 2021 have been 60 CHF, barely a couple of pants :smiley:

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We don’t feed our dog ready-made meals/food, it’s either really crap, or good quality and expensive as hell. We barf, meaning we feed him fresh, mostly raw meat, veggies, fruit, etc. Our dog had problems digesting the ready-made meals/food and he is now way healthier and fit since we started to barf and that’s more important for me than any money in the world.
I’d also need an extra room to store food for one year :rofl:

I agree, but even then it’s impressive in my opinion.

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I also rarely eat breakfast. 2 good meals/day is enough.

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As a powerlifter ? Thought these guys would have 8 meals a day just to get the calories in (was playing rugby before, and getting 6000 kalories in a day was not that easy sometimes)

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4000kcal/day are enough for me. 1200-1800kcal lunch/dinner each and some snacks here and there.

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What do you mean with 13 chf/month “fixed” costs for public transport?

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Maybe halbtax with some rounding?

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Yeah 165 / 12 = 13.75.

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Faster than I could respond. Absolutely correct. Thanks to Covid I don’t have any fixed expenses for work commuting anymore besides the halffare abo (live in the city). For the few times Office I go by bike - classic MMM style- or use public transport for the really bad days (entered as transportation variable expense). Cheers

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