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kel716
member
NBR Poll: How much does your household spend, monthly?
kel716
member
For TTT, because the bump can be stupid sometimes and I'm interested in this one...
[Poll]
This discussion has been closed.
Re: NBR Poll: How much does your household spend, monthly?
I can pull mine down (although I added some verbiage about the total NOT including health insurance premiums).
Does anyone look at this and start getting excited about when HUGE drop offs in monthly spending go away? For example, dh's car is paid off in May and we have a CC that is 2 mos from being gone for good.
If it were me, I'd vote including only the mortgage on your primary residence (unless, of course, you pay out on a gap in mortgage out vs. rent in on your other two homes). KWIM?
I hear you. We only have one car payment, right now, and that loan will be paid off in less than 2 years (not quite as impressive as your situation, but it's still something to look forward to, especially since we *should* stand to have ZERO car payments for AT LEAST few years). Also, we save quite a bit, over the summer, with no childcare costs. C'mon summer!
This is what I did. I did not include the rent that covers utilities and partial mortgage of our rental house but I did include the shortfall we have every month between the amount of that mortgage and the rent collected on it. (BTW, TTT we still have not decided if we will pay off that mortgage next year with cash influx or if we will invest it elsewhere. We're still debating pros and cons.)
TTT, what are you hoping to learn from this poll? And why include every single expense but exclude health care costs?
Yeah... we're considering leaving B at his DC center for the summer 2 days/week. He loves it, the interaction with other kids is helping him hugely, and I will probably be working at least one odd job. But the cost and money we could save... GULP.
I thought I did.
I get it. If only there was just ONE right answer, KWIM?
I'm planning to sell all of the data to a marketing firm. A girl's gotta pay the grocery bills.
I see liken healthcare premiums to retirement savings (and all other pre-tax deductions). Those costs vary so much (and have little/nothing to do with the COL in our area) that to include them, IMO, would skew the answers.
I feel very fortunate after looking at these choices! We don't live in a big house, but we live mortgage free and our house is nice and remodeled inside etc.. It's not my dream house by any stretch of the imagination, but man, I can't imagine paying 4-5k or MORE a month in expenses. I would need 4 jobs!
FTR, $1-2K is not me. But.... here's a scenario...
Mortgage: $600
No Car Payment
Car Ins $100
Utilities: $200
No student loan debt
No CC debt
Cell Phone $50. No landline
Cable/Internet $100 (for us, this is not negotiable)
Groceries, gas, incidentals ???
SAHM, so no child care costs
I might add this is my dream. But we'd have to downsize our house.
Agreed, although if I stayed at home and we didn't have daycare costs, we'd fall into that category. Daycare costs suck the lifeblood out of our house. I can't wait until the day when I don't have to pay daycare.
I think that's one of the reasons I think this poll is sort of lacking in meaningful data. What is expensive? It's all relative to one's income, no? So if you bring in $3000/mo and your expenses are $3000/mo that's a bit different than bringing in $6000/mo and having expenses of $3000/mo, kwim?
But that brings me to another question that I often muse over. Where people spend their money. DH makes a good living but we don't have a lot of swanky sorts of possessions because we choose to spend our money in other places. But then I see people who make less than or equal to what we make and they have all sorts of expensive possessions. Their kids are dressed in boutique clothing, they drive luxury cars, they are big into fashion. Meanwhile DH and I eat out all the time and we travel but others don't.
Then again, one never knows what other people's debt situations are or how much they have leveraged. I have learned that what people appear to own is seldom an indication of their wealth.
Sorry, I keep going on. What I was trying to get at was that I think it's more meaningful to look at expenses as a function of income.
But it looks like TTT was trying to get a feeling for cost of living in which case this poll makes more sense now.
I think I am done now. But who knows, I might be back with more stream of consciousness ramblings. (Things always go loopy in my head when H is OOT)
I have a lot to say about this but I think it best to just shut up before I get started.
To Moesten- the one thing I find interesting about this poll is what *is* possible in terms of monthly budgets. And I agree, it's relative to what your spending/saving ratio that is most important. The other thing is if you're living beyond your means. Even if that is what is spent out of your checking, how much goes on your CC's? (hypothetical). I know some people who don't necessarily spend bunches... but their CC debt is ridiculous. KWIM?
Ours is close to $2k month
I guess I didnt realize how little that was until looking at this poll lol Granted that is excluding our health insurance stuff/medical bills
Currently our biggest expenses are 1) mortgage, 2) medical bills, 3) gas
We dont have cable and pay minimally for internet. We have no cc debt or car loans (we are big on paying cash for everything). We dont really go on vacations except for family vaca's but those are largely paid for by our parents--we just end up paying for some food and gas to drive to the vacation site. Actually we do pretty well when you factor in our charitable giving too (approx $350/month). We set our entertainment budget pretty low ($90/month-- we stay in A LOT and drink cheap beer haha). We also purposely picked our house knowing that we would be a 1 income family and wanted to pick one that was low enough that we wouldnt be house poor. As for utilities and what not-- they stay lower since we have a smaller house but our house has plenty of space for us (4 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, laundry room, and soon to be finished basement).
I know my suggestions arent very helpful but I think we were very blessed that we didnt have any debt going into our marriage and we work hard not to get into any debt.
What is this supposed to mean?
Strollers!
This was what got my wheels turning. Since I have a good feel for overall COL in this area, and we are all (for the most part) a similar dynamic, I wanted to see how our household budget compared to others.
Now I'm thinking it's unfair that you all know what my husband makes and the reverse isn't true.
Don't get me wrong, I'm jealous!
Yes, now I want to know. Everyone is entitled to her opinion.
That may have been a gift, so I wouldn't be too judgey
And like you stated above, people spend their money in different ways. We hold back on other things to get the things we value more. We don't go out to eat, I don't buy expensive clothes and don't buy clothes often ( I actually still wear work pants from college, etc.), I don't wear expensive make-up, I think expensive purses and sunglasses are a waste, etc. We save quite a bit, but I would like to save more. Early retirement sounds nice.
Of course, but that wasn't the objective...unless, of course, you all want to share your household AGI vs monthly expenses on a public message board. Anyone? No? I didn't think so.
At the end of the day, the most important thing [to me] is how my family is doing against our financial goals. Along the way, if I can learn a few things about shaving expenses (doing it "better") from a [relatively] similar group of people, so much the better. KWIM?
Every vote counts, silly.
Maybe this calls for another poll
Ugh! I wouldn't even know where to begin. I'd have to pass the torch to one of the resident statisticians on the board.
Just giving you a hard time, silly. But I am still thinking of staging a stroller intervention for you. Oh BTW, I totally thought of you when I was at Buy Buy Baby and saw a $1100 stroller. Totally makes yours look like a cheapy Graco.
And I completely agree with you on the fashion expenses. And yes, we all put our money where we feel it is most useful and valuable. I don't do expensive purses and sunglasses or clothes either. But DH and I do spend a bunch on eating out and on vacation. Those are things we enjoy and we are happier putting our money there than into clothes or cars or sunglasses, etc. I am struck by what other people find to be important things worth spending their money on but then some people think we're crazy to have the dining out budget we do.
I agree with TTT about measuring where we are versus our financial goals. DH and I aren't as disciplined as we could be but we are meeting our goals on the timeline we have. If we wanted to ramp things up we could meet our goals much earlier. As it is, we are still living with our white laminate countertops and white vinyl floors three years after moving in.
Lurker here--
I'm in Dayton and we are debt free except for our home...and WOW to the people spending only $2k to live! We still spend 4-5k a month! We have "envelopes" and we contribute to them every month for car repairs, vet visits, etc so I guess that's why...but dang...we're nowhere near 2k and we live minimally!!
I read this entire post with interest. Maybe the questions to ask are: What percent of your total income to you spend on necessities? What percent of your total income is spent on things you actually could make do without? What percent do you save/put in investments? I completely agree that $3k might seem like a lot, but it is completely related to how much you bring in. I am sure no one wants to give up numbers on a public message board, so maybe percentages are more harmless? Maybe I missed the point of the poll since I missed the deleted posts?
I also agree with those who really want to be in the under $1k camp. That is our goal one day. Won't happen until the student loans are all paid off, and the mortgage is gone. But how freaking liberating would it be to pay only utilities and food, and daily living expenses out of your paychecks? I would love that!