PERSONAL SPENDING REVIEW

Where Your Money
Actually Goes

Sep 2024 – Jan 2026 · 18 months

Excludes rent, business, and transfers · All figures monthly

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YOUR MONTHLY BUDGET

$1,158/mo in discretionary spending

Food

$398

34% · groceries, dining, coffee

Shopping

$395

34% · household, clothing, misc

Fixed Costs

$178

15% · car insurance, DMV, utilities

Everything Else

$187

16% · gas, travel, streaming

Two-thirds of your spending is food + shopping. Fixed costs (insurance, DMV, utilities) are only 15%. This means most of your budget is within your control — but as we'll see, most of it is also already reasonable.

MONTHLY TREND

Your spending is event-driven, not habitual

The 15x gap between your lightest month ($142 in Oct '25) and heaviest ($2,107 in Jun '25) tells you something: your baseline spending is low. The months that spike are driven by one or two large purchases or trips — not runaway day-to-day habits.

This means traditional budgeting advice ("cut your daily latte") barely applies to you. Your leverage is in the big decisions, not the small ones.

GROCERIES · $299/MO

You shop at 6 stores. Here's what each costs you.

Costco (Sunnyvale)

$116/visit

Costco (Mtn View)

$120/visit

99 Ranch

$95/visit

King's Seafood

$83/visit

Hankook Supermarket

$60/visit

Trader Joe's

$46/visit

Total per month

$299

USDA thrifty plan for CA: $301

Visits per month

2.6

47 trips over 18 months

$299/mo is already at the federal "thrifty" baseline for a single adult in California. You're not overspending on groceries. Costco runs are $116 avg but that's bulk — the per-unit cost is lower than anywhere else on this list.

The only question: are the 99 Ranch and King's Seafood trips ($83-95/visit) for specialty items you can't get at Costco/Hankook? If so, they're justified. If there's overlap, consolidating saves gas and impulse buys.

WINS · PHONE PLAN

You already optimized your phone bill — 7x cheaper

Provider	Period	Monthly Cost	Savings vs AT&T
AT&T	Sep '24 → Apr '25 (8 mo)	$55.34	baseline
Tello	Sep '24 → Nov '25 (overlap)	$7.70	-86%
Mint Mobile	Jan '25 → Jun '25	$52.00	-6%
Xfinity Mobile	Jul '25 →	$17.27	-69%

Before

$55/mo

AT&T

→

Now

$8/mo

Tello (main line)

Switching from AT&T to Tello saves you $564/year. You experimented with Mint Mobile ($52/mo — barely cheaper than AT&T) and landed on a Tello + Xfinity combo. The Tello line at $7.70/mo is one of the cheapest plans in the US.

This is exactly the right approach to saving money: find structural switches that save every month forever, not willpower-based cuts you'll eventually abandon.

SUBSCRIPTIONS · $16/MO

Your subscription stack is already lean

Service	/Month	How	Verdict
Tidal	$4.00	Direct	Do you use it over YouTube?
YouTube Premium	$3.50	India pricing	great deal
Kindle Unlimited	$3.20	Sporadic use	check usage
Apple (various)	$4.10	iCloud + apps	likely needed
Netflix	$1.00	2 months only	already cancelled?

$16/mo is extremely low. The average American pays $91/mo in subscriptions. Even if you cancelled everything, you'd save $192/year. This is not where your money goes.

The only question: are Tidal ($48/yr) and YouTube Premium ($42/yr) overlapping? If you listen to music on YouTube mostly, Tidal is redundant. That's the only real decision here.

COFFEE · $35/MO

Not all $637 was "coffee" — you invested in making it at home

Type	Total	/Month	Per Unit
Nespresso machine + pods	$235	$13	~$1/cup
Cafe visits (34 trips)	$402	$22	$11.80/visit

You spent $175 on a Nespresso in Dec '25 and $60 on pods. If that machine replaces even 2 cafe visits/month going forward, it pays for itself in 8 months and saves ~$250/year after that.

Before Nespresso

2.4 cafe visits/mo

~$28/mo on cafe coffee

If Nespresso replaces them

~$5/mo on pods

saves $23/mo · $276/yr

Track your cafe visits over the next 3 months. If they drop, the Nespresso is working. If not, you're going to cafes for the experience, not the coffee — and that's fine, just own it.

FIXED COSTS · $84/MO

Your utility costs are well-optimized

Phone (Tello)

Xfinity Mobile

$17

PG&E (electricity)

$40

Renter's insurance

Internet (Comcast)

$12

Phone at $8/mo, renter's insurance at $7/mo (Lemonade), internet averaged out to $12/mo. PG&E at $40/mo is low for California. There's nothing to cut here.

For reference: median Bay Area utilities for a single person run $150-200/mo. You're at $84. This is already in the top 10% of cost efficiency.

THE HONEST ANSWER

You're already frugal. Here's what's actually left to optimize.

Category	/Month	Status
Groceries	$299	At USDA minimum. Don't cut.
Dining out	$64	Very low. Not an issue.
Utilities	$84	Well below Bay Area median.
Subscriptions	$16	6x below national avg.
Gas	$56	Fixed, drive-dependent.
Coffee (cafes)	$22	Nespresso should reduce. Monitor.
Tidal + YouTube overlap?	$4	Pick one if overlapping.
Kindle Unlimited	$3	Cancel if not reading regularly.

Realistic Monthly Savings

$29/mo

$348/yr from coffee + streaming cleanup

Already Saved (phone switch)

$47/mo

$564/yr vs AT&T — already locked in

The uncomfortable truth: you've already made the big structural cuts (phone plan, low subscriptions, cooking at home). The remaining optimizations are worth maybe $30/mo. At this level of spending, further cuts hurt your quality of life more than they help your finances.

THE REAL QUESTION

You spend $1,158/mo on everything.
You invest $1,283/mo in a business making $0.

Where the leverage actually is:

Cutting spending from $1,158 → $1,129 saves you $29/mo.
Landing one freelance client or first revenue saves you $1,283/mo (by covering business costs).

Your spending is a solved problem. The unsolved problem is that $23k/year flows out to build something that hasn't earned yet.

The best financial move isn't a smaller grocery bill.
It's revenue.

Data: Sep 2024 – Jan 2026 · 18 months · all personal discretionary spending

Where Your MoneyActually Goes