topic Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown! in Credit Cards

Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

wasCB14 — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 00:53:06 GMT

I decided to compare my spend across all cards for 2018. No major surprises for me.

Feel free to share yours, in either dollar or percentage terms.

Card	2018 Percentage	2019 Spend Forecast
BBP	27.4%	Similar
Double Cash	18.8%	Down (after partial CL reallocation from CSR to CFU and some one-time 2018 purchases)
Prestige	9.6%	Closed via PC, no intention to return
CSR	8.7%	Up (main travel/dining card)
SPG/SPG Luxury	8.6%	Down a lot (unless I get some promos again), may close
Schwab Platinum	6.8%	Down (some one-time 2018 purchases)
Costco	6.0%	Up a lot (2019 Costco electronics purchases)
Hyatt	5.8%	Down a lot in favor of CSR/CFU
Discover	3.5%	Similar
Freedom	2.2%	Depends on the calendar
CFU	1.4%	Up a lot with a CL reallocation and CSR
ED	0.4%	Similar as Costco and 5% promos limit use for groceries
CSP	0.4%	Closed via PC, inferior to CSR
Arrival	0.1%	Similar, PIN rarely needed...but I think Aviator's no-AF edition does charge FTF.
IHG	0.1%	Renewal night
BCE	0.1%	Similar, unless I get some decent Offers. Not really any point in closing since it's just a click away from my Schwab Platinum and BBP. May do a partial reallocation.
Aviator	0.1%	Bonus chasing, may close

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 12:21:06 GMT

i didn't have a good system with multiple cards until late 2018.

Freedom 25%: dining, grocery and shopping, gas, rest general

Amzn visa 12%: mostly amzn spending

DC/Fid VISA 25% flight + rent

Ink business 38% business spending

for 2019:

Ink business unlimited: 30% or so

Amzn visa: 10%

Propel (CSP backup): 15% flight+gas

Amex gold: 15% grocery + dining

DC/Fid visa/CFU: 30% rent + general non cat

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

redpat — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 02:00:51 GMT

50% MR 35% UR 10% AA 5% Hilton

2019 - 75% MR

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

K-in-Boston — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 02:14:09 GMT

Oh man, I'm not that organized! LOL

I suppose I could pull year-end statements, but there's a little here, there, and everywhere, so that would be time-consuming.

I know for sure I spent around $77-78,000 on SPG/SPG Luxury to pass the $75k mark for Platinum Elite, and answering a question on the forums last month I know I spent at least $110,000 total on Amex cards in 2018.

$7-8k on Citi Prestige, $5k on Chase Freedom, and a few thousand here and there on other cards.

This year, I'm concentrating on bonus categories for CSR/Freedom, Premier, and Amex Gold to rack up points, airfare will stay on Amex Platinum, hotels will stay on SPG Luxury, Apple Pay will go on Altitude Reserve, and everything else will go on Delta Reserve for the MQD waiver and at least one 15k MQM and 15k SkyMiles bonus (but hopefully the 2nd one for $60k spend, too). Targeted offers will change this, of course, but that's my plan.

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

wasCB14 — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 02:29:49 GMT

@K-in-Boston wrote:
Oh man, I'm not that organized! LOL
I suppose I could pull year-end statements, but there's a little here, there, and everywhere, so that would be time-consuming.

True, the effort involved is extremely issuer-dependent.

Amex, Citi, and Discover make it easy to view a year's transactions. Barclays is too not far behind (and there was little there).

Chase was the only one that took some time.

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 02:47:41 GMT

My 2018 breakdown was Amazon.com got all my money.

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

K-in-Boston — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 02:47:53 GMT

28 out of 34 of those cards had spend in 2018. 😂

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

wasCB14 — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 02:59:17 GMT

If I count Prestige and DC as one card for 2018 (I PCed), then my top third of cards (5 of a current 15) got about 80% of my spend.

The bottom third of my current 15 got less than 1%.

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 04:06:52 GMT

Fun topic. My breakdown is pictured below. Citi DC got the majority of my spend at a little over $40k and Blispay with the least at $45.

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

K-in-Boston — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 04:09:51 GMT

BBS you are an overachiever.

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 05:48:26 GMT

Naaah 😃

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

bondsandloan — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 07:22:25 GMT

50% - Citi Premier
50%- Amex SPG

Plan to move spend away from both cards to CSP & Amex Gold and maybe hotels on Citi Premier. Probably move everything away from Amex SPG.

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 14:55:18 GMT

Discover Double CB $6746

WF Propel Amex 5145

BBVA Compass 5089

PenFed $ Rewards 4567

Sam's Club MC 3030

Cap1 QS 2092

USB $+ 1424

Chase FU 775

FNBO 489

kohls 319

BestBuy Visa 147

TOTAL SPEND $29,823

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

iced — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 15:37:19 GMT

Mine's pretty easy - about 75% CSR and 25% Platinum. Category breakdowns get more interesting:

Platinum:

CSR (using 2017, but 2018 will basically look the same and hasn't come out yet):

In retrospect, I probably should have thrown Coolidge on the CSR - if it coded as Entertainment on the T&E category that was a few thousand UR of lost opportunity.

Probably a pretty different looking profile compared to some. No gas, no Costco, no Wal-Mart, no Amazon.

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

K-in-Boston — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 18:03:28 GMT

@iced on Visa, it codes as 7832 - Movies/Theaters/Music/Dance Studios. Thank you for supporting independent theaters.

I didn't think that MCC would trigger the 3x on CSR?

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 18:46:48 GMT

Very interesting discussion; I've never tracked that before. I'm going to limit it to the top 10 of
the 40 or so cards I spend on, as the bottom 30 get very sporadic use, driven mostly by one-time
offers which are impossible to predict and retention spending which is trivial. I've also collapsed
multiple duplicate cards by program, since I use those interchangeably (3 different Chase Freedom, 3
different Discover it).

Card	2018 Percentage	2019 Spend Forecast
Alliant CU	25.3%	Dramatic drop. This one benefitted from 3% CB on everything into Q2 and 2.5% CB rest of the year, but dropped off precipitously as I ramped up on the Altitude. Very little goes on it anymore, may end up cancelling/downgrading it.
USBank Altitude	16%	Significant increase. With an effective 4.5% CB on everything Travel or GooglePay-able, this became my dominant card mid-year and even more when Costco started accepting GooglePay sometime into Q3. This one will dominate even more in 2019 unless rewards get nerfed.
Chase Freedom	11.8%	Probably flat. Categories haven't been announced for Q2-Q4, but presuming they're about the same usefulness as 2018, I'd expect around the same ranking.
Chase Ink Preferred	7.3%	Dramatic drop. Most of this was the required spend to get SUB of 100k URP; the only thing that still goes on it is my Google Fi bill for 3URP/$, and I'll drop this card before the annual fee kicks in.
Discover More	5.2%	Probably flat. Only use for 5% categories. Calendar is different than 2018 but probably similar results.
USBank FlexPerks Travel	4.9%	Dramatic drop. This card is almost useless to me now. Will transfer remaining points to Altitude and almost certainly kill the card mid-year.
Costco Business Visa	4.5%	Drop. This one was driven largely by LaQuinta hotel stays, particularly during an epic 17 day roadtrip. Unlikely to recur this year. Otherwise gets gas and some restaurant spending when I don't have a better alternative. Costco and Travel spending go on the Altitude, and where I can't use Google pay I use the Alliant at 2.5% or Fidelity at 2%.
USBank Cash+	4.3%	Increase. Became my card for 5% on utilities starting Q2, should be all year now. And utility bills just seem to keep going up.
Chase Ink	3.5%	Probably flat. Verizon and AT&T bills and the occasional office store purchase. Reliable 5URP/$ on that spending and that's likely to remain unchanged.
CCU Visa	2.8%	Depends on offers. Only gets limited grocery spending at 3%CB (when there's not a better offer and I can't use Google pay). Using it for $500 or $1000/mo gooses the interest rate on my checking account, but with savings rates rising elsewhere, that is becoming less and less interesting. I'll still use it when they offer a bonus for spending $x during a time period, but that's unknown at this time.

Chris.

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

digitek — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 21:07:46 GMT

I thought this was a neat idea and I've kind of did it informally for myself in 2017. I was able to make this with my transaction data from Mint for 2018 exported as CSV and then imported into Google Sheets. Removed a lot of non-related stuff and filtered it down to just debit transactions on credit card accounts and then made a pivot table. Shear luck and clicking/trying some stuff was able to produce this. It isn't perfect, doesn't calculate SUB's or returns, but it gives a pretty darn good picture over a total of 776 transactions. This also doesn't include my DDDDDDDDW's accounts, which are like the wild west and I dare not go there for the sake of our marriage.

The final numbers are about a 3.3% cashback average on a total of ~$46k spend, and about a ~$600 net gain over using just a single 2% card.

Really cool idea and thanks for spurring me to do it for 2018

CC Spend Analysis 2018

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

iced — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 21:26:28 GMT

@K-in-Boston wrote:
@iced on Visa, it codes as 7832 - Movies/Theaters/Music/Dance Studios. Thank you for supporting independent theaters.
I didn't think that MCC would trigger the 3x on CSR?

I wouldn't think so either, but if they lump travel and entertainment together on the statements/reports, perhaps they're also lumped together on the 3x? If so, that changes things.

I can get a drink next time I'm catching a movie and pay with CSR to see what happens.

Re: Share your 2018 spend breakdown!

K-in-Boston — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 22:41:39 GMT

No, while they get lumped together I don't think they'll get 3x. A lot of non-qualifying travel purchases would make it into that broad category that won't get 3x, for example. I know that there's a certain chain theatre over in Chestnut Hill whose food and beverage purchases qualify as restaurant purchases.