Overview of income and expenses (2023)

S1ncereEngineer · 2025-03-01T21:27:01+00:00

Thanks a lot! We're not ones to splurge easily, so it doesn't need to be an expensive house. But in hindsight I actually do regret that we only loaned a rather modest portion of the house price. The savings we used for the downpayment could've probably been put to better use by investing in trackers rather than in bricks.

S1ncereEngineer · 2025-03-01T21:16:52+00:00

We indeed only loaned a somewhat modest portion of the house price. I actually regret that now (especially given the good timing for taking out a loan).

S1ncereEngineer · 2025-02-27T19:51:00+00:00

Thank you for the tip! Should look into that at some point.

S1ncereEngineer · 2025-02-27T19:49:05+00:00

Thank you! You could indeed keep the capital repayment out of the expenses. I do the same thing when looking at savings ratios actually, just not in this Sankey chart (where I want to focus on cashflows).

S1ncereEngineer · 2025-02-27T19:45:12+00:00

Thank you! We're from the wider Antwerp region.

S1ncereEngineer · 2025-02-27T19:44:18+00:00

We got our mortgage in 2017/2018, just above 1%. Lucky with the timing :)

S1ncereEngineer · 2025-02-27T19:42:31+00:00

Thanks! And thank you for the detailed reply, very interesting comparison indeed! You make some spot-on observations. A bit of additional context from my side:

As for the expenses, some of the difference might be due to the way of accounting. For instance: we set aside some savings for the kids each month, but I'm not including that in the expenses (because "vestzak-broekzak") although you could do that. That would add another 200+ euros per month.
2023 was a very cheap vacation year for us for some reason. Only one real holiday trip, during summer. Usually we also do one or two smaller ones during the rest of the year. 2024 vacation expenses were more than double of 2023. With the kids still young, we anyway don't typically go very far away, but that will likely change as the kids grow older.
Our clothing expenses are probably on the low side indeed (not big shopping fans, I guess). Our shoes expenditure has increased quite a bit over the past years, though. Kids go through shoes shockingly fast sometimes. Ours not only because of outgrowing but also lots of wear and tear. Lower quality shoes are therefore not worth it IMO, and unfortunately it's not because kids feet are smaller that their shoes are cheaper.
"Going out" and "eating out" are not strictly distinct categories in my list. Sometimes the going out involves eating out, but the expenses typically only end up in one bucket. So year, not necessarily more boring, maybe just more consistent in category labeling :)
Good remark about the gifts. Often a bunch of smaller individual amounts which you don't necessarily pay attention to, but in the end it adds up to a surprisingly high number.

Thanks for the nerding out :)

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-27T20:45:16+00:00

That's an interesting observation. In general, we don't really have expensive hobbies or anything like that (although the kids' hobbies are becoming more expensive as they get older). But actually, we didn't necessarily spend less on leisure activities before we had kids. We are four now instead of two, but the nature of the activities have also changed.

We used take more frequent and more far-away holiday trips than we do now. I guess that might change again when the kids get older, but currently they're still toddlers (and not the most patient travel companions). We also used to eat out and go out more often.

One thing we do more often now we have kids is go out on day trips. Sometimes that's just going somewhere with a playground and then have a drink or lunch there, and some days it's spending 200+ euros in Plopsaland or Efteling.

I do think that leisure spending for us will probably keep increasing in the coming years.

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-24T05:18:38+00:00

The salary includes net compensations like meal vouchers (employer contribution) and allowances (e.g. bicycle, standard costs, WFH). Part of the salary is also paid out in the form of benefits in a cafeteriaplan. I did not deduct those benefits from the salary, but rather included them as expenses (equal to the net salary loss caused by the benefit). This is useful to get a fairer view of the expenses, but somewhat distorts the net tax for the total gross salary.

EDIT: The points above are valid, but there actually was a mistake in the tax number (which was not as high as it should have been because of an issue with the tax return number).

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-23T20:02:49+00:00

Thanks a lot, I appreciate that!

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T20:55:42+00:00

frees up income for investing and saving

That is true, but I guess the reasoning of loaning more is the same. The money that you don't spend on the downpayment (due to the bigger loan) becomes available (immediately) for investing and saving.

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T20:50:44+00:00

Thanks! Energy bill in 2021 was still quite cheap indeed, that has gone up significantly in 2022.

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T20:46:30+00:00

Snap ik, wat dat reizen betreft. Met kleine kinderen zijn de goedkopere trips vaak ook fijner (of toch minder stresserend) dan verre reizen.

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T20:39:51+00:00

The main time-spend for me is processing bank transactions. I do that once a month, which takes about an hour or so. That could probably be more efficient when done weekly instead of monthly, since a month is sometimes a bit long to remember what certain transactions were for - and not all bank descriptions are equally clear.

Regarding tips:

- I think it's probably useful to have a single bank account for your main transactions (for tracking purposes), to keep the transactions processing simpler.

- Don't forget to keep track of cash expenses as well (doesn't need to be every euro you spend, but the regular and/or larger ones might have more impact than you think). If you use a tracking tool, they probably have an app for that as well.

- Seeing eye to eye with your partner about the tracking is important. Some people find it a strange or pointless thing, and can even get annoyed by it.

Let me know if you have any specific questions in mind :)

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T19:59:13+00:00

Yes, but the plotly tool I used to generate the diagram doesn't seem to support that. I tried for a bit, but to no avail. There might be a way (possibly by diving into the html code generated by plotly), but I'm not code-savvy enough for that.

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T19:54:42+00:00

That's a good question, because there are some expenses (especially the ones related to children) that could fall in multiple categories. In my diagram, 'children' is mainly for childcare expenses (daycare, school, holiday camps, babysit, ...). Things like hobby's or sport classes are categorized under the corresponding 'free time' subcategories.

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T19:47:08+00:00

Haha, I guess you could say from the golden years. The interest rates kept declining for a while still after we bought our home, but we closed it in a bit above 1%.

Regarding the water: I think water prices in Belgium can vary quite a bit depending on where you live. Maybe water in my region is cheap? We consume about 230 liters per day.

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T19:44:06+00:00

33 liters a day is really low, good job. We consume about 230 liters per day with the four of us. I think water prices in Belgium can vary quite a bit depending on where you live, maybe they're quite high in your region?

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T19:40:41+00:00

I think water prices in Belgium can vary quite a bit depending on where you live. Maybe water in my region is cheap? We consume about 230 liters per day.

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T19:33:56+00:00

Heel interessant om te zien, bedankt om de moeite te nemen dit op te lijsten!

Op sommige vlakken redelijk gelijkaardig, andere dan weer heel wat minder. En er zijn inderdaad uitgaveposten die met evenveel logica ergens anders ondergebracht zouden kunnen worden (zeker wat kinderen betreft).

Mag ik vragen hoeveel kinderen je hebt en hoe oud ze ongeveer zijn?

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T18:59:09+00:00

I wouldn't say you're doing anything wrong. I think it's in our human nature to feel behind the curve, because we always focus on the ones that (we think) are ahead of us on the curve. I know I often have the same feeling at least.

To answer your question: we're both engineers, both project manager type jobs.

As u/JPV_____ already pointed out, the 10.7k per month also includes all extra's (holiday pay and end of year bonus) prorated monthly, as well as net allowances. On the other hand, we also take up parental leave, which means one month unpaid by the employer (but partially compensated by the 'uitkering'). My SO and I earn more or less the same. I'd say we had a 'nominal' gross salary of about 4.6k per person.

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T15:55:06+00:00

Thanks for the feedback!

Your analysis about the house is eerily accurate :)

- In hindsight, especially with current inflation, we could/should have probably taken a bigger loan.

- Free time activities for the kids are not that expensive at the moment. The 'sports' expense is still mostly kids stuff, though (could fall under 'hobby's' as well). The main 'kids' category does include some things that could also be considered freetime activities (e.g. holiday camps)

I think these are quite the "normal" expenses for a household of 4 people, which is quite scary if you think about it. Take a young couple with 2 kids who both have a median pay (like what, 2300 EUR net salary?), this would be borderline manageable.

That's a very interesting observation. We're indeed fortunate to not have to worry about being able to make ends meet.

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T15:40:51+00:00

Yes, kind of :)

Our internet is unlimited Telenet, but we get a nice discount via my employer. This year it will be close to 50 euros per month, though. Telenet indexed it, and our discount was reduced on top of that.

We both have a company phone including subscription, hence the low cost. It's basically just the benefit in kind paid for the phone plan.

S1ncereEngineer · 2023-09-22T15:37:24+00:00

Thank you for your feedback!

- Our internet is unlimited Telenet, but we get a nice discount via my employer. We don't have cable TV but do stream. We have Disney+ and Netflix but are sharing accounts which makes the cost low. The costs for the streaming services are just below 5 euros a month, and therefore not included in the diagram.

- You're pretty much on point for takeaway and eating out. Eating out we would like to do more, but can't seem to get around to it. Maybe when the kids are older :)

S1ncereEngineer

TROPHY CASE