Personal annual cost of living report

OK, I admit it. I am copying this idea from An Exacting Life. Love the idea of an annual cost of living report for the family. So here is my version comparing 2012 to 2011 and how we did in major categories:

HOUSING RELATED COSTS - Still outrageous, but better than last year. We seriously need to downsize.In the meantime I've been watching utilities, fighting for lower property taxes and making sure we maintain this place.
Natural gas – We used 590 therms of gas in 2011, versus 400 therms in 2012, a reduction of 32.3%! Wish I could take credit for the reduction but is was a warmer year. Rates also went down a bit so overall we spent 35.2% less in this category!
Electricity – We used 9278 kilowatt/hours in 2011, versus 8977 in 2012, a reduction of 3.2%. Spent 5% less too.
Water, sewer & trash – A reduction of 4.7% in water use, but the cost was 6.5% more! More work to do here as the water is the only part of the bill we can impact (sewer is based on water use and trash is fixed cost).
Property tax – We challenged our property value appraisal and won a small reduction that will last for 2 or 3 years. Our overall cost stayed the same this year if you include the cost of hiring an expert to handle the appeal. Since rates went up a lot that was still a win.Of course I would have also been happy if my house had actually been worth what they estimated!
Home insurance – A 10.3% increase here plus our excess liability rider went up 4.8%. One of those areas where it is so hard to impact cost although I call each year and ask for ways to cut it down.
Home & yard maintenance - This is a part of our budget that drives me crazy, but at least it went down 38.5%. I can't even remember why it was higher in 2011 - probably related to tree work. We do need to do some work inside this year and haven't even begun to grapple with a budget for that.

FOOD & HOUSEHOLD GOODS RELATED COSTS
I have been working on cutting back in this area and in fact we reduced both our shopping and eating out expenses. A reduction of 13.5% for shopping and 3.9% for eating out.

CARS
We have two of these lovelies and live in car centric Atlanta. No public transit for us. However we spent 10.8% less on gas in 2012. That is due to driving less, lower gas costs and buying discounted gas debit cards when offered as a promotion by our grocery store (more please!). Of course car insurance went up but since I track it with license and tax costs I'm not sure of the percentage.

HEALTH CARE
Despite new glasses, orthodonture, pilates and PT for me as well as the usual doctor and dentist visits we spent 3.6% less in this category. I'll take what I can get and be grateful for good health insurance.

So now for the not so good news. We made less in 2012 due to Federal employees no longer being able to get bonuses or raises and a sharp decrease in my consulting work. We also spent 5% less overall, but the two didn't even out.

Still, overall we are happy with how we spent our money this past year. We maxed out our retirement accounts, slightly increased our donations, and gave some major gifts to family members including our portion of our son's upcoming wedding. Our travel costs went up but we had more time with family and a brief vacation. I don't regret a penny of any of that although I know it will not be sustainable in retirement. Just means we have to move closer to family!

Do you ever look at your spending this way?