$250 utilities. Is it just gas/electric? Seems high
^ I’d love to spend only $250/month on gas (oil in my case) and electric. Speaking of which, I need to pay my oil bill.
^^Utilities is gas, electric & water. It tends to be more in the big a/c or heating seasons, but I think $250 is about the average. It is a house,not an apartment, so that may account for some heat loss relative to NYC.
I would have guessed this to be significantly higher.
You only go out once a month?
These days usually when I go out I am eating as well, so I’ll file it under dining (although alchohol is certainly part of the cost). If I’m hanging out with friends it is usually to a house. I don’t go clubbing and whatnot.
Got it. Though I didn’t realize the house utilities could be so much higher.
I have a soft spot for really well done taxidermy. Since I don’t comment on my wife’s hair and nails spending, she leaves me alone with my art collecting.
^Norman Bates? Is that you?
$1500 mortgage $300 utilities $800 grocery $500 food eating out $150 cable/internet $100 phone $300 property tax $200 car insurance $150 gas $1700 daycare (though i get $300/month refunded)
plus gifts of probably $300-$350 a month if it was all added up
so about $5700/month.
it would be tough to cut from these numbers. maybe a little from grocery and eating out but not much else.
EDIT: plus booze of $100-$150 month. wasteful.
Just went through mine and that’s about where I’m at.
So far I’ve only broken down to “booze” and “other.”
home services? taxi? charity? but why?
Most of you guys are undercounting maintenance costs (e.g. yearly car maintenance, gardener if you have one, HVAC, house) and insurance costs (health insurance and out-of-pocket healthcare related). I live in a moderately expensive area (Southern California) but it’s hard to imagine amortized FIXED costs less than $8K/month with a modest mortgage and two cars.
This is not even counting variable costs like restaurants and wife’s makeup crap… I mean beauty products that to an untrained eye doesn’t make her look any better or worse. I’d go long ULTA if fashions were not so rapidly changing.
My view is that you can take care of things like home repairs and medical emergencies from your bonus/savings. It doesn’t make sense to include them in a monthly budget because you cannot predict them.
Seriously? People are funny. You gotta start getting minimalist.
$23,352 a year and I didn’t even try. Do you really want to spend a tuition a year on that stuff?
^ I didn’t notice the $400/month in clothing before. $4,800 per year on clothes? Really? If that’s true, you should be able to have your own section in a local consignment shop.
Why? I don’t make money simply because I like to rub in against my naked, slightly too hairy body. If you have disposable income, buy stuff. Money does indeed buy happiness (bring it bchad).
$1000 rent $100 bus $200 utilities+internet $300 groceries+eating out
So about $1600 in fixed/regular spendings…I know work will pay for internet, and I’m sure they’ll pay for bus as they’re not paying for a parking spot for me ($180/month). Haven’t asked yet though.
Rest goes to paying down debt. I have about 25k total. It may be unrealistic, but I would love to be debt free in 3-4 years. My income will only go up, and I have no reason to spend more than I currently do. I should probably start saving too.
Though would love to get a car at the end of this year (my commute is an hour by bus, 15 min if I were to drive traffic free, and as I work late I feel like I’m playing roulette with my life as I wait alone in a dark lonely bus stop). I’m practically hugging the emergency post at the bus stop. But I have to admit not paying for car insurance or gas or maintenance is amazing. Even if I took an uber home every day after work (and bus to work in the morning) it would still be cheaper than owning a car (payments+gas+insurance+maintenance).
If you live in an expensive area (i.e. New York or San Francisco) and want to be in a good public school district, I can easily see mortgage payments of $5000 a month or higher. One guy I know pays that much in property taxes alone (although he is on the higher end of the range). The upside is that people pay you more to work here. I’m not going to find my current comp in Ohio, for instance. Overall, I think you still end up with more money by living in an expensive place, especially if you are open to retiring somewhere with low cost of living.
People in some places, New York especially, do seem to throw away money on services or other things. It is still strange to me how people who make over $1 million or more per year can have almost no savings. Also, I am amazed by how many people around me pay around $8000 a month for rent. There has to be some realistic compromise between these extravagant spending levels and a more modest living.
Yet another reason sales is the place to be. I can live anywhere and it doesn’t affect my comp.
For some reason I can’t get this out of my head:
“That’s what I love about these high school girls. I get older, they stay the same age. Yes they do.”
Not a perfect analogy, but close enough.
@Black Swan, I agree with you in principle, but I think that 6k is a good first salvo. There is bound to be some transitional friction and I want to make sure we don’t fail out of the gate with too agressive of a plan. Also
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I can’t completely cancel Verizon triple play. My wife and I both need internet, especially since we work from home often. We also need a landline for this reason. Cable…could cut for ~$40 savings.
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No clothing budget? So, I just start stealing stuff from Salvation Army?
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Cleaning and exterminator. The cleaning one is tough, since my wife and I could certainly do it ourselves. However, we both work a lot and between work, gym and cooking don’t have a ton of time or energy to justify saving $240 per month.For the exterminator…I could probably look into how to do that myself, since it isn’t that often. But, it’s also only $40.
Agree with everything else in terms of reducing meals out and entertainment. But, I think that is something to ease into after successfully doing the $6k.
Edit: also, if my kid’s tuition is $23k and I’m paying for it (no scholarship) that that is immediate hacksaw. S/he ain’t going to SUNY - Buffalo on my dime.
@higg, I want to make sure that I am including all costs so that I don’t fail immediately. Also, $4800 probably isn’t as much as you think if you were to really look at it. I am going to need a few new suits this year, probably in the next couple of months. My wife needs new work shoes and running shoes right now. She also needs a few new sports bras. That’s at least $1,500 for the suits, probably more like $2,000, ~$150 for the shoes, ~$100 for the sports bras in the next couple of months.So, I’m at $2,250 before I consider the rest of the year, which I’m sure will bring many random unforseen clothing costs.