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North Carolina Babies
POLL: BUDGETS!
I know its not anyone's favorite topic, but we're starting the Dave Ramsey budget plan and our goal this year is to really get a good handle on things. Now, its easy to budget some things, but I'm having tro/uble thinking through a few of the ones that I haven't been so great at, so just curious what others do. So, what do you budget per month (or if you don't budget, what do you think would be reasonable for your family) in these categories:
1. Car Repair (tires, oil changes, maintenance, etc) (how many cars do you have and how old are they and do you or DH do any of the oil changes/main. or do you pay someone to do it all?)
2. Clothing: For you/Dh and for your kid(s) (do you get hand me downs, or do you pretty much buy your child all their clothes)
3. Toiletries (and for this category I basically mean anything you buy at the grocery store that isn't food...diapers, wipes, toilet paper, paper towels, shampoo, make up, toothpaste, etc..)
4. Groceries (how many people are you feeding? how many meals do you eat out?)
5. Entertainment (what do you typically do for entertainment?):
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Re: POLL: BUDGETS!
1. Car Repair (tires, oil changes, maintenance, etc) (how many cars do you have and how old are they and do you or DH do any of the oil changes/main. or do you pay someone to do it all?) I don't have a separate budget category for car repair, when it comes I file it under Misc. Expense. We have 2 cars, an '04 and an '00, and expenses/oil changes typically only happen a few times a year (knock on wood).
2. Clothing: For you/Dh and for your kid(s) (do you get hand me downs, or do you pretty much buy your child all their clothes). Again, I don't keep a separate category. I have a "Liam" category that his clothing falls under, and DH and I each get a "Fun" allowance, that our clothes and anything else personal falls under. Everything Liam (from diapers to clothes, toys, etc.) is $100 a month, and DH and I each get $50 (that includes clothes, MNO for me, golf for him, anything else non-essential).
3. Toiletries (and for this category I basically mean anything you buy at the grocery store that isn't food...diapers, wipes, toilet paper, paper towels, shampoo, make up, toothpaste, etc..) I don't separate toiletries from groceries, so my figure below incorporates everything.
4. Groceries (how many people are you feeding? how many meals do you eat out?) $550, which feeds 3. We almost never eat out, and that falls under a different category from groceries. We do buy all of our meat, milk, and much of our produce at Earth Fare/Whole Foods.
5. Entertainment (what do you typically do for entertainment?): We get $75 a month for eating out, and DH and I each get $50, as I mentioned above. This would include a date night for us, maybe dinner and a movie, or something like that. Mine usually includes a MNO, and DH typically spends his on stuff for his Xbox or golf.
1. Car Repair (tires, oil changes, maintenance, etc) (how many cars do you have and how old are they and do you or DH do any of the oil changes/main. or do you pay someone to do it all?) dh and his dad usually do our oil changes and car repair, both our cars are 96' and on a good year we spend maybe $200 per car in maintenance and repair. unless we have to buy tires... then its like 400 per car. ouch!
2. Clothing: For you/Dh and for your kid(s) (do you get hand me downs, or do you pretty much buy your child all their clothes) for ds, i buy him very little clothes, he usually gets plenty as gifts/hand me downs. as for dh and myself, we very rarely buy new clothes, since we usually get those as gifts. but when we do buy them, i usually get stuff at consignment shops. so i'd say we might spend $100 a year on clothes per person.
3. Toiletries (and for this category I basically mean anything you buy at the grocery store that isn't food...diapers, wipes, toilet paper, paper towels, shampoo, make up, toothpaste, etc..) see below
4. Groceries (how many people are you feeding? how many meals do you eat out?) for 3 people we spend anywhere from 50-100 a week including toiletries and pet food. so at most $400, but usually less. we eat out 1x a week w/dh's grandpa and he pays for that.
5. Entertainment (what do you typically do for entertainment?): we have netflix lol, so our budget on that is less than $20 a month. and dh has an xbox, so he might trade a game in and use that credit towards a new game.... but pays very little out of pocket. we don't go out... ever lol, so that saves A LOT of $.
We just had a major budget talk this weekend. Here is what we came up with.
Car Repairs: We are saving $100/mo for unexpected expenses, so we could pull from that. We also have $200/mo Misc. that we could use. (We have 07 and 08 Toyotas that are in good shape - fingers crossed)
Clothing: DD's cloths come out of her $200/mo - that includes formula/diapers/co-pays etc. We will be re-evaluating this category when she switches to milk. We buy cloths for ourselves very rarely. We have $50 for it each month but usually only buy cloths 2x a year.
Toiletries: $150 This is our Target/BJs category. We allot $150/month and it also includes small fix-it items for around the house. Like a new storage bin for the attic or WD40 for a squeaky door.
Groceries: $300 That feeds DH, DD and I. DD doesn't really eat a full meal yet. Though I do send lunch. We rarely eat out, and that is a different category. As DD eats more regular meals and starts on milk, this category will likely get up to $400.
Entertainment: $50. Sadly we don't do much right now. I spend $15/wk on yoga - most weeks. In the spring and fall DH might go to a driving range a few times. Also, eating out counts as fun for us. Sometimes we have people over for dinner/drinks.
1. Car repair: This is included in our gas budget, which is $150/mo. We also have a savings line, which comes out to about $2850/yr (3 cars, includes unexpected repairs-we have $1500 set aside for that, taxes, insurance, registration, and inspections). I have a take home work truck which saves us a ton, otherwise we have a '99 Toyota Tacoma, '11 Hyundai Sonata, and an '04 Honda S2000 (the toy-rarely driven).
2. Clothing: Comes out of fun money, which is $150/mo each.
3. Toiletries: No kidlet, so no diapers. It's $75/month, but we rarely hit that.
4: Groceries: Just the 2 of us, we rarely eat out. It's $275, including alcohol.
5: Entertainment: $50. We eat dinner out 1x/month.