Know Your Numbers: Monthly fixed costs

NOTE:  This post is part of the Know Your Numbers Series, talking about how to find out and keep handy all your financial numbers. Before you can make smart choices about your finances, you have to know what you have, what you owe, and how you usually spend your money.

It's time to collect the info on all of your regular monthly expenses.  Many of these fixed costs will be truly fixed, and stay the same each month, while some may fluctuate throughout the year if you're not on an equal billing plan.  Here are the numbers you should hunt down:

Cable
Internet
Home Phone
Cell Phone
Hydro (Electricity)
Water
Natural Gas (if you have gas heat or appliances)
Oil (if oil heated home)
Car insurance
Home insurance
Other insurance
Daycare


Some of these bills (such as the water bill) might come every two months, so keep that in mind when you're hunting down the paperwork. If the expense is one that stays the same every month, like Internet usually does, then you'll only need to track down your most recent bill.  For services such as natural gas, if you're not on an equal billing plan, you'll want to hunt down as many of the bills as you can (preferably a whole year's worth) so that you can figure out what your monthly average amount is, for when you use your numbers to build your budget.

The other big numbers for your monthly expenses that you should know, include:

Mortgage payments
Property tax (which might be part of your mortgage payment)
Rent
Car payments

While mortgage and car payments also belong in the debt part of knowing your numbers, they are generally an expense incurred every month, so they can equally be categorized with your monthly bills.