My husband and I started tracking every dollar in October 2015. We were earning good money and saving, but we couldn’t answer basic questions. How much do we actually spend on food? Could we live on one income if we had to? What would change if we had kids?
So we built a system. One monthly budget number. Every dollar tracked in a spreadsheet. And every dollar we came in under budget rolled into what we call the vacation fund — a running surplus we use for travel, family gifts, and the big one-off expenses that don’t fit into a monthly rhythm.
Ten years later, our household income went from $250K to $1M. Our spending went from $76K to $147K. It didn’t even double. And when I look at where the increase actually went, nearly all of it concentrated in just four categories — rent, childcare, groceries, and travel. Phone bills, entertainment, clothing? Barely moved.
This is 10 years of real data. Every number is from our actual spreadsheet. Here is what surprised us, what we got right, and the system that made it work.
- Tracking period: October 2015 – present (10+ years)
- HHI trajectory: $250K (2017) → $500K (2019) → $800K (2024) → $1M (2025)
- Spending range: $76K/year (2016) → $147K/year (2024)
- Spending CAGR: 8.6% (2016–2024), vs. income ~4x in same period
- All-in tax rate: 40–45%
- Savings rate (post-tax): ~70–74%
- Surplus fund processed: $90,000+ over 10 years
- Location: NYC area, renters, two kids (ages 7 and 3)
What’s in this post
- 10 years of spending data
- Where the $71K increase actually went
- The childcare story nobody tells
- The grocery ratchet
- What didn’t creep
- The system: budget, surplus, vacation fund
- The vacation fund in action
- The savings rate curve
- 2024 full breakdown
- FAQ
10 Years of Spending Data
| Year | HHI | Total Spending | Monthly Avg | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015* | ~$200K | $17,818 | $5,939 | Oct–Dec only (3 months) |
| 2016 | ~$220K | $75,633 | $6,303 | Baseline year, no kids |
| 2017 | $250K | $82,161 | $6,847 | |
| 2018 | ~$350K | $80,205 | $6,684 | Spending actually dropped |
| 2019 | $500K | $89,853 | $7,488 | First kid born |
| 2020 | ~$550K | $88,483 | $7,374 | COVID — lived with family |
| 2021 | ~$600K | $99,618 | $8,302 | Moved to bigger apartment |
| 2022 | ~$700K | $128,047 | $10,671 | Big jump — childcare + rent |
| 2023 | $800K | $144,427 | $12,036 | Second kid born |
| 2024 | $800K | $147,183 | $12,265 | |
| 2025 | $1M | Tracking | — |
The pattern is clear: Income roughly quadrupled. Spending didn’t even double. The spending CAGR from 2016 to 2024 is 8.6%. Sounds high until you factor in two kids, a rent increase from $3,300/month to $5,000/month, and post-COVID grocery prices that never came back down.
Look at 2018: our income jumped significantly, and our spending went down. That’s not willpower — that’s the system working. The budget number didn’t change, so spending didn’t change.
Where the $71K Increase Actually Went (2016 → 2024)
This is the part that surprised me. Our spending went from $75,633 to $147,183 — an increase of $71,550. Nearly all of it concentrated in just four categories:
| Category | 2016 | 2024 | Change | CAGR |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rent | ~$39,600 | $60,150 | +$20,550 | 5.4% |
| Childcare* | $0 | $23,203 | +$23,203 | — |
| Groceries | ~$6,100 | $11,936 | +$5,836 | 8.7% |
| Travel | ~$4,000 | $12,124 | +$8,124 | 14.9% |
These four categories account for 81% of the total spending increase.
*Childcare includes payments to grandparents who help with the kids, house cleaners, and cash gifts to family for caregiving. First kid born in 2019, second in 2023. We lived with family during COVID which kept childcare near zero for two years.
The remaining 19% was spread across everything else — and much of it was just inflation. Phone bills, internet, insurance, entertainment — all essentially flat in real terms.
The Childcare Story Nobody Tells
We deliberately avoided the two biggest childcare expenses in NYC: full-time nannies ($60–80K/year) and private school ($40–60K/year per kid). We use a combination of free public school (including free pre-K, which is genuinely one of the best things about NYC), grandparent help, and strategic use of a part-time nanny for transition periods.
And even with all that optimization, our childcare-related costs look like this:
| Year | Childcare Spending | What It Includes |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | $1,163 | Baby supplies, minimal help |
| 2020 | $590 | COVID — lived with family, near-zero cost |
| 2021 | $2,684 | Grandparent help starting |
| 2022 | $12,652 | Cleaners + grandparent gifts + activities |
| 2023 | $14,382 | Second kid born, more help needed |
| 2024 | $23,203 | Full-time grandparent help + cleaners + nanny |
$23,203 for two kids in NYC. We skipped nannies. We skipped private school. We have grandparents who sacrifice their time. And it’s still 16% of our total spending.
Here’s the part that doesn’t get talked about enough: the grandparent gifts aren’t optional. When your parents spend 20+ hours a week caring for your children, you compensate them. It’s not “free childcare” — it’s family childcare at a fair price. The cash line in our budget ($10,960 in 2024) is mostly money going to grandparents and cleaners who make the whole system work.
For families doing full-time nannies plus private school, the childcare line is $100K+/year. We’re at $23K because we built a family-based system — and even that number is growing fast. The CAGR from 2021 to 2024 is 105%. That’s not sustainable. The kids will age out of it eventually, but the idea that you can raise kids in NYC cheaply is a fantasy, even if you optimize aggressively.
The Grocery Ratchet
One thing I didn’t expect: groceries doubled during COVID and never came back down.
| Year | Groceries | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | $6,111 | — |
| 2020 | $13,544 | +122% (COVID bulk buying) |
| 2021 | $9,904 | –27% (partial normalization) |
| 2022 | $11,184 | +13% |
| 2023 | $16,135 | +44% (second kid + inflation) |
| 2024 | $11,936 | –26% (stabilized, but still 2x 2019) |
We’re not buying anything different now. Same stores. Same diet. Prices just… stayed. Going from $6K to $12K on groceries when nothing about our shopping habits meaningfully changed feels like a stealth tax. The CAGR from 2019 to 2024 is 14.3% — way above official CPI for food. That’s the grocery ratchet: prices spike during a crisis, and they never fully come back down.
What Didn’t Creep
This is the part I find more interesting than the increases:
- Phone: $1,327 (2019) → $1,333 (2024). 0.1% CAGR. Literally unchanged in 6 years. Two lines, same plan.
- Restaurant: $10,796 (2019) → $13,127 (2024). 4% CAGR — basically inflation. We eat out roughly the same amount at roughly the same places.
- Entertainment: $767 (2019) → $863 (2024). Flat.
- Clothing: $1,195 (2019) → $1,542 (2024). Barely moved.
- Cable & Internet: $1,489 (2019) → $858 (2024). Actually went down — we dropped cable.
We didn’t upgrade cars (don’t own one — NYC). Didn’t upgrade our apartment to match income. Didn’t start buying luxury anything. The spending that increased was almost entirely driven by life changes (kids) and real cost increases (rent, groceries post-COVID), not lifestyle inflation in the traditional sense.
When people talk about “lifestyle creep,” they imagine a slow, invisible upgrade across every category. That’s not what happened. Our spending was surgical: four categories drove 81% of the increase, and three of them (rent, childcare, groceries) were structural costs, not choices.
Travel is the one true discretionary increase. We went from $4K to $12K per year. We decided that experiences with the kids while they’re young is worth it, and we don’t feel guilty about it. The vacation fund makes that possible without touching the monthly budget.
The System: Budget, Surplus, Vacation Fund
In October 2015, my husband and I started tracking every dollar. Not because we were broke — we weren’t — but because we had no idea where our money went. We were earning good salaries and saving, but we couldn’t answer basic questions like “how much do we spend on food?” or “could we live on one income if we needed to?”
We built a simple system that we’ve used for 10 years without changing it:
- Set a monthly budget. Not a line-item budget — a single number. One target for total household spending.
- Track every dollar. Every purchase goes into a spreadsheet, categorized. No exceptions, no rounding.
- Surplus rolls into the vacation fund. If we spend less than the budget, the difference accumulates in a running “vacation fund” balance. If we go over, it comes out of the fund.
- The vacation fund pays for the fun stuff. Travel, big gifts, one-time expenses, family support. Things that don’t fit into a monthly rhythm.
That’s it. No envelope system, no spending categories with individual limits, no apps. Just: one number per month, and a running surplus that funds the good stuff.
Our monthly budget over the years:
| Period | Monthly Budget | Annual Budget |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 2015 – Feb 2017 | $7,000 | $84,000 |
| Mar 2017 – Dec 2019 | $8,000 | $96,000 |
| Jan 2020 – Feb 2021 | $9,000 | $108,000 |
| Aug 2021 – Dec 2021 | $11,000 | $132,000 |
| Jan 2022 – Dec 2022 | $11,500 | $138,000 |
| Jan 2023 – Feb 2024 | $11,725 | $140,700 |
| Mar 2024 – present | $12,400 | $148,800 |
The budget went from $7,000/month to $12,400/month over 10 years. That’s a 77% increase. In the same period, our income went from ~$250K to $1M — a 300% increase. The budget grew at roughly the rate of inflation plus real life changes (kids, bigger apartment). It did not grow with income.
Why this works psychologically: The vacation fund turns under-spending into a tangible reward. Every month you come in under budget, you’re not just “being frugal” — you’re funding your next trip, or your next big family gesture. The constraint creates freedom. It’s the opposite of deprivation.
The Vacation Fund in Action
By the end of 2018, our vacation fund had accumulated $39,182. Here’s how we deployed it:
| Category | Amount | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Travel | $13,268 | Europe (3 trips), domestic road trips, national parks, babymoon |
| Family support | $54,925 | Grandparent childcare gifts, Dad’s dental work, security deposits |
| Loan payoffs | $9,523 | Three extra payments + final loan payoff |
| Other | $14,011 | Furniture, kids’ summer programs, security deposits |
| Total deployed | $91,727 |
Look at how the fund’s purpose evolved. Early on (2016–2018), it was mostly travel — Europe trips, domestic road trips, weekend getaways. We were a young couple with no kids, and trips were the big one-off expenses.
Then kids arrived, and the fund shifted toward family support. By 2021–2024, the biggest draws were gifts to grandparents for childcare ($31,500 total), a parent’s medical expenses ($13,425), and security deposits for bigger apartments. The fund went from “vacation money” to “family resilience fund.”
The lesson: Your spending priorities will change. The system doesn’t need to. A simple surplus-accumulation mechanism adapts naturally because you decide what the surplus funds. At 28, it funded a trip to Europe. At 36, it funded a parent’s medical bills and grandparent childcare. Same system, different life.
The Savings Rate Curve
With a 40–45% all-in tax rate and our actual spending, here’s what the savings rate looks like over time:
| Year | HHI | Est. Take-Home* | Total Spending | Est. Savings Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | $250K | $144K | $82,161 | 43% |
| 2019 | $500K | $288K | $89,853 | 69% |
| 2020 | $550K | $316K | $88,483 | 72% |
| 2021 | $600K | $345K | $99,618 | 71% |
| 2022 | $700K | $403K | $128,047 | 68% |
| 2023 | $800K | $460K | $144,427 | 69% |
| 2024 | $800K | $460K | $147,183 | 68% |
| 2025 | $1M | $575K | ~$150K est. | ~74% |
*Take-home estimated at 57.5% of gross (42.5% effective tax rate). Excludes RSUs and bonuses, which go directly to investment accounts. These estimates are conservative — actual savings rate is likely higher.
The key insight: Our savings rate jumped from 43% to 69% in just two years (2017–2019) — not because we cut spending, but because income doubled while spending barely moved. After that, the savings rate has held remarkably stable in the 68–74% range. More income doesn’t mean more savings rate. It means more savings dollars, but the rate plateaus because spending does eventually increase with life complexity (kids, bigger apartment, more family obligations).
The 43% → 69% jump is the real story. It happened because the budget system held spending constant through a massive income change. Without the system, I’m fairly confident we’d have spent an extra $40–50K/year on a nicer apartment, a car, and restaurants. The system made the default “don’t change” rather than “upgrade to match.”
2024 Full Breakdown ($147,183)
| Category | Amount | % of Spend |
|---|---|---|
| Rent | $60,150 | 41% |
| Childcare (Child + Cash) | $23,203 | 16% |
| Restaurant | $13,127 | 9% |
| Travel | $12,124 | 8% |
| Groceries | $11,936 | 8% |
| Personal Care | $5,547 | 4% |
| Hobbies | $2,929 | 2% |
| Utilities | $2,597 | 2% |
| Healthcare | $2,549 | 2% |
| Home Improvement | $2,155 | 1% |
| All other | $10,866 | 7% |
Rent + childcare alone is 57% of our spending. That’s the real story of being a two-income family with young kids in a HCOL area. Everything else is noise.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you track every dollar?
We use a simple Excel spreadsheet. Each month gets its own tab. Every purchase is entered manually with a date, category, who paid (me or my husband), and whether it was reimbursed. The categories (rent, groceries, restaurant, travel, etc.) have stayed the same for 10 years. No apps, no integrations, no automation. Manual entry forces you to notice every transaction. Takes about 5 minutes per day.
What does the vacation fund actually fund?
It started as a literal vacation fund — travel that doesn’t fit into a monthly budget. Over 10 years it evolved into a general “surplus fund” that covers: family trips (Europe, national parks, road trips), gifts to grandparents for childcare, extra loan payments, furniture, security deposits, kids’ summer programs, and family medical expenses. The fund has processed over $90,000 since 2015.
Why don’t you own a home on a $1M income?
We rent in the NYC area by choice. When we run the numbers — our rent vs. buy calculator uses our actual data — renting and investing the difference has outperformed buying in our specific market. At $60K/year in rent, we’d need a property worth $1.5M+ to get comparable space. The opportunity cost of a $300K+ down payment invested in index funds, plus property taxes, maintenance, and insurance, makes renting the better financial move for us right now. This could change if we leave NYC.
How do you handle months where you go over budget?
It comes out of the vacation fund. The cumulative balance goes down. It has happened — September 2018 we went $1,862 over budget, December 2018 we went $1,187 over. The fund absorbed it. We don’t “make up for it” the next month or feel guilty. The whole point of the system is that over-budget months are expected and accounted for. Over 10 years, we’ve come in under budget roughly 80% of months.
Did your spending increase proportionally with income?
No. Income roughly quadrupled ($250K to $1M), spending didn’t even double ($76K to $147K). And the spending increase was “surgical” — concentrated in 4 categories (rent, childcare, travel, groceries) that were driven by life changes and real inflation, not discretionary upgrades. Restaurants, phone, entertainment, and clothing barely moved over the entire period.
What is your savings rate and how do you calculate it?
Our savings rate from take-home pay (after taxes) runs 68–74%. We calculate it as: (take-home income minus total spending) divided by take-home income. Our all-in tax rate is 40–45%, so on $1M gross, take-home is roughly $575K. Spending $147K of that gives a savings rate of about 74%. Note: RSUs and bonuses go directly to investment accounts and aren’t included in the take-home calculation, so our actual wealth accumulation rate is higher than this number suggests. Use our savings rate percentile calculator to see how your rate compares.