US Cost of Living — My First Month, By the Numbers
It’s been another month since my first two weeks of settling-in expenses. This time I looked at August 2 – September 13, which is close enough to call it a full month of actually living here. Last time was “just spend and see.” This time I was more deliberate about splitting things into recurring (money that goes out every month) and one-time (settling-in costs that only happened once).
At a glance
| Theme | Spend | Nature |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Vehicle/Transportation | $22,735.52 | Car purchase (one-time) + insurance/parking pass (effectively recurring) + actual driving costs |
| 2. Home | $2,402.02 | Move-in setup (one-time) + first rent payment (recurring) |
| 3. Food | $1,166.64 | Almost entirely recurring |
| 4. Shopping/Personal | $2,725.24 | A few big one-time purchases + small recurring spend |
| 5. Travel/Leisure | $1,926.14 | Mostly one-time flights |
| 6. Subscriptions/Utilities | $106.84 | All recurring |
| Total | $31,062.40 |
The number looks huge, but more than half of it is money that only went out once — buying a car and moving in. So the real point of this post isn’t this table, it’s the next one.
As of the September 13 snapshot, 10 transactions were still pending — the final numbers may shift slightly once those settle.
Recurring vs. One-time — what’s my real “monthly cost of living”?
Going through a month of card statements, I noticed the biggest charges were usually the ones that won’t happen again: $21,500 for the car, $1,231 for move-in setup, $606.94 to fill out my closet, about $1,850 across a couple of flights. Calling any of that “this month’s living cost” felt misleading. So I pulled out only the items that genuinely repeat.
| Recurring item | Monthly amount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Rent (Westdale) | $1,170.97 | Actual payment confirmed 9/10 |
| Food (dining + groceries) | $1,166.64 | Full month, actual spend |
| Transportation (gas, car wash, local rides) | $154.59 | Car wash is a $9.99/month unlimited membership, so it’s recurring |
| Auto insurance (6 months, $900 prepaid) | $150.00 | Monthly equivalent |
| Subscriptions/Utilities (Anthropic, Amazon Prime, Apple, electricity) | $106.84 | |
| Leisure (movies, habitual small spend) | $29.21 | |
| Hair salon | $50.00 | Repeats every few weeks |
| Small Amazon orders (steady-state estimate) | $91.37 | Excludes the move-in-week ordering spree |
| Total (recurring monthly) | $2,919.62 |
| One-time / settling-in cost | Amount |
|---|---|
| Car + tax | $21,500 |
| Move-in setup (furniture, IKEA, sofa, U-Haul) | $1,231.05 |
| Closet setup (Dillard’s, ON Inc, REI, Nike, etc.) | $606.94 |
| 2 large Amazon orders (net of 1 refund) | $586.22 |
| 2 flights (Cancún + DC) | $1,720.54 |
| Watch (details below) | $676.56 |
| Everything else (a comedy show ticket, Airbnb, driver’s license fee, a work-trip Uber, the annual parking pass, Apple Store, CVS, etc.) | $496.61 |
| Total (one-time) | $26,817.92 |
$2,919.62/month — this converts rent, insurance, and the parking pass into “money that goes out every month.” It’s a much more honest number than this month’s total spend ($31,062.40) for what I should actually be budgeting going forward. Seeing on paper that the big settling-in costs really are one-time was oddly reassuring.
Where my taste actually showed up this month
Once I strip out the unavoidable stuff (car, home, food, utilities), almost everything left that I “didn’t strictly need to spend” fell into two themes: shopping and travel/leisure. A month of card statements turned out to be a pretty honest record of what I actually like and what I don’t mind splurging on.
Shopping — one watch
The single biggest line item inside Shopping ($2,725.24) was a watch. I decided to try out a Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| List price | $725 |
| Discount | -$100 |
| Subtotal | $625 |
| Final price, tax included | $676.56 |
I’d never owned a proper watch, so I figured this was as good a time as any to try one. An unexpected $100 discount brought the tax-included total to $676.56. Set next to the closet haul ($606.94) or the big Amazon orders, this watch was clearly the #1 “just for me” purchase of the month.
Travel — two plane tickets, Cancún and DC
Most of the Travel/Leisure line ($1,926.14) is two flights.
| Flight | Charged to my card | My actual share |
|---|---|---|
| Cancún (Frontier) | ~$1,300 | ~$650 — I also booked a companion’s ticket |
| DC (Southwest) | ~$400 | ~$400 |
The Cancún ticket shows as $1,314.74 on the card, but that charge covers a companion’s ticket too, not just mine — so my real share is roughly half, around $650. This is the flight I booked to put my anxiety to rest, on impulse, two days before an exam.
The DC flight was entirely mine, so the full $405.80 is my actual spend.
Card statements alone can make travel spending look bigger than it is — money paid on someone else’s behalf shows up in full on the statement even though it isn’t really “my” spending. Next time I should track “amount charged” and “my actual share” as two separate numbers.
Wrapping up
One thing became clear after a month here: the big settling-in costs really do disappear, and what actually matters is the $2,919.62 that repeats every month. Even within that number, rent ($1,170.97) and food ($1,166.64) already account for more than half, which confirms that shopping and travel are really the only discretionary levers I have.
And one thing I learned about myself watching this month’s spending: I’m not really someone who tries to trim the essentials — I’m someone who, once something catches my interest (a watch, a flight), commits to it fully. Next month I’ll be watching how deliberately I can manage those two discretionary themes — shopping and travel.