I've been looking at our household expenses for the last year... since I'm a teacher, I tend to view the end of August as the end of the year. I plan to look at each expense category in turn, from the biggest to the smallest.

Our single biggest expense, as expected, is our mortgage. We paid $26,600 (Cdn) on it over the past 12 months. We pay weekly, and doubled up 24 of those weekly payments.

It's a variable-rate mortgage, and right now the rate is sitting at 4.75%. At that rate, we'd have it paid off in less than five years. Of course the rate won't stay that same, though. If it starts going up to the point where the mortgage won't be paid off before our planned retirement date, then we'll have to start doubling up payments again to keep the amortization acceptable.

I expect for the current year, we'll pay only $18,200 in mortgage costs, since we're investing money rather than aggressively paying off the mortgage right now. Since it's an expense that will eventually go away, I don't think it's worth scrutinizing any further!