"Everything Else"

[texaslady22]

I switched jobs, we moved out of state, we sent out kids to public school and stopped homeschooling....We've had a lot of changes around here lately!!

We've been living the last few months but I haven't sat down and examined our finances. I've been to afraid to. I finally did it today.

After we pay our mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities, phone, internet, cable, etc, we have $950 left over for the rest of the month. That includes food, gas for the cars, and any shopping we might need. We're a family of 5....none in diapers anymore (woohoo!!)

Is that do-able? Is $950 a month reasonable for a family of 5?

There was a time when we ate at home and stuck to a grocery budget of $100 a week. There was a time when we desperately budgeted everything as we were working to get out of debt. Now, we have no debt except for a mortgage and 50K in the bank and we're just being too....permissive. I really want to pay off the house early, but we've got to get back where we're living within our means! Last month we spent $500 on eating out alone.

I work from home and my husband is a stay-at-home father so our gas costs are quite minimal. Can we live on $950/month for food, fuel, and any misc. expenses? I just need encouragement that we can do this...we've done it before. It's just so easy to go to a nice restaurant instead of cooking at home! :-(

 

[scrapquitler]

I switched jobs, we moved out of state, we sent out kids to public school and stopped homeschooling....We've had a lot of changes around here lately!!

We've been living the last few months but I haven't sat down and examined our finances. I've been to afraid to. I finally did it today.

After we pay our mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities, phone, internet, cable, etc, we have $950 left over for the rest of the month. That includes food, gas for the cars, and any shopping we might need. We're a family of 5....none in diapers anymore (woohoo!!)

Is that do-able? Is $950 a month reasonable for a family of 5?

There was a time when we ate at home and stuck to a grocery budget of $100 a week. There was a time when we desperately budgeted everything as we were working to get out of debt. Now, we have no debt except for a mortgage and 50K in the bank and we're just being too....permissive. I really want to pay off the house early, but we've got to get back where we're living within our means! Last month along we spent $500 on eating out alone.

I work from home and my husband is a stay-at-home father so our gas costs are quite minimal. Can we live on $950/month for food, fuel, and any misc. expenses? I just need encouragement that we can do this...we've done it before. It's just so easy to go to a nice restaurant instead of cooking at home! :-(

It depends on what else your family does. Our family of 4 couldn't eat and have gas in our two cars for $950 a month (and I'm a Stay at home Mom with a DH that mostly works at home), let along all the rest of 'everything else'. Don't forget to budget in kids activities and things they need for school, possible repairs to your cars, entertainment. I guess if that's what there is, you'll adjust and make it work, if I had to make it work, I would find a way, but the lifestyle we live would have to change a bunch. And it also depends on where you live.

 

[davper]

First off, congratz on being debt free except for your mortgage. Dave Ramsey would be proud.

The one item I did not see in your bill list is the payment to yourselves. This is the amount you are putting into savings. It should be just as important as your mortgage.

With one of you not working, there is no excuse to not preparing meals at home. Once a week is fine if you have the room in your finances. Once a month if you are tight. But that is just me. I don't see eating out as a must have splurge in my budget.

If paying off your mortgage early is important to you, you need to analyze how realistic a goal that is. If pulling that belt really really tight will pay it off in a couple of years is feasible for you, then I say go for it. Then you can replace the mortgage payment with a savings payment to retire early.

 

[elaine amj]

You can do it!

I admit - I used to be way more frugal and as our incomes have gone up, we've let the dreaded lifestyle inflation creep in gradually. A few years back, $3k a year was a lot to spend on vacations. Then it became a 6k budget a year. DH just got a new job with a nice raise and although we keep trying, we've been letting this year's vacation budget creep upwards. I think it will hit $7-8k this year.

That said, give yourself a goal and work towards it. Do you know what you want for your life? You obviously have been able to knuckle down to pay off a load of debt - congratulations! What about changing your goal now to work on retirement? It will come soon enough and having a decent nest egg will make you feel so much better.

I try to spend time on the MrMoneyMustache forum because I like the idea of reducing consumption (although I will be the first to admit that I rarely reach my ideal).

 

[TwoMisfits]

I switched jobs, we moved out of state, we sent out kids to public school and stopped homeschooling....We've had a lot of changes around here lately!!

We've been living the last few months but I haven't sat down and examined our finances. I've been to afraid to. I finally did it today.

After we pay our mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities, phone, internet, cable, etc, we have $950 left over for the rest of the month. That includes food, gas for the cars, and any shopping we might need. We're a family of 5....none in diapers anymore (woohoo!!)

Is that do-able? Is $950 a month reasonable for a family of 5?

There was a time when we ate at home and stuck to a grocery budget of $100 a week. There was a time when we desperately budgeted everything as we were working to get out of debt. Now, we have no debt except for a mortgage and 50K in the bank and we're just being too....permissive. I really want to pay off the house early, but we've got to get back where we're living within our means! Last month we spent $500 on eating out alone.

I work from home and my husband is a stay-at-home father so our gas costs are quite minimal. Can we live on $950/month for food, fuel, and any misc. expenses? I just need encouragement that we can do this...we've done it before. It's just so easy to go to a nice restaurant instead of cooking at home! :-(

It would be difficult (especially since you aren't saving anything, at least in the write up above)...so you may need to relook at phone, internet, and cable (even insurance/utilities) and see if you can get by with less services in those areas. Anything you can save there should go in savings/emergency (and if you're doing that, retirement and college funds), and then yes, you should try to make $950 work for the rest (and if you have a hiccup month, you have the savings/emergency to fall back on)...

 

[barkley]

I switched jobs, we moved out of state, we sent out kids to public school and stopped homeschooling....We've had a lot of changes around here lately!!

We've been living the last few months but I haven't sat down and examined our finances. I've been to afraid to. I finally did it today.

After we pay our mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities, phone, internet, cable, etc, we have $950 left over for the rest of the month. That includes food, gas for the cars, and any shopping we might need. We're a family of 5....none in diapers anymore (woohoo!!)

Is that do-able? Is $950 a month reasonable for a family of 5?

There was a time when we ate at home and stuck to a grocery budget of $100 a week. There was a time when we desperately budgeted everything as we were working to get out of debt. Now, we have no debt except for a mortgage and 50K in the bank and we're just being too....permissive. I really want to pay off the house early, but we've got to get back where we're living within our means! Last month we spent $500 on eating out alone.

I work from home and my husband is a stay-at-home father so our gas costs are quite minimal. Can we live on $950/month for food, fuel, and any misc. expenses? I just need encouragement that we can do this...we've done it before. It's just so easy to go to a nice restaurant instead of cooking at home! :-(

I think it's do-able. there were years where we got by on much less for our family of 4. you've got 50K in the bank? they you've got an emergency fund for anything unexpected so it will just be down to making a reasonable plan for how to avoid what appears to be your biggest budget buster-eating out.

my kids never did a bunch of outside school activities (none really) so we didn't have that expense, our grocery costs only fluctuated in the summer months but that's b/c the kids were out of school and tended to nosh more (curious-have you seen your actual purchased grocery expense go down since the kids are no longer homeschooled-I know some who have). so we had a set amount w/in our 'household budget' (gas, food, misc) that I earmarked for food each months. if I spent less one month I tried to set it aside for another when I might spend more (we've made Costco a once every OTHER month trip to stock up on meat to freeze so those months cost more in grocery money). we planned/plan meals around what we've got on hand-and ideally to provide leftovers for lunches (ds only does school hot lunch occasionally by choice which is nice cuz it's a savings). as far as eating out-yeah it happens but I try to avoid it. kids are every bit as happy w/a papa murphy's take and bake pizza as the local pizza parlor-so I can get a family size for less than $10, save on not paying for tips/drinks/dessert, I can make taco meet, heat refried beans and get a bottle of taco bell brand taco sauce for them to make burritos for less than a trip to taco bell....we do go out for each person's birthday but it's no uber expensive place (in fact it was just more convenient on my recent birthday to order our food to go but MAN what a nice surprise to realize that just by taking it home to eat was over a $50 savings).

first step for us was to start meal planning. w/meal planning we also thought about what our kids most commonly ate when we went out-and honestly, it was among some of the least expensive to make at home so we just started making the stuff ourselves. sometimes it was 'taco bell night', in the summers allot of bbq'd foods, in the winters lots of soup, beans, roasts/chicken (whatever was on the best sale).

you can do it!!!!

 

[texaslady22]

We don't really have a lot of expenses...the kids aren't in any activities. For entertainment we have a community swimming pool in our HOA, a splash pad, and a playground. We'll rent a Redbox movie. They're 2, 5, and 8 so we don't do much more than that. It's mainly just eating out that's KILLING out budget. $500 on fast food in a month? Yes, we did that last month. :-(

We do have 50K in the bank and are maxing out our 401Ks, so I'm not as worried about the "what if's" but I know if I don't start worrying about the day to day we'll no longer have that emergency fund, much less be able to do something like pay off our house.

Hubby is working on a Master's Degree and will become a teacher, but that's 2 years away (when our little one will be starting school). Until then, this is what we have.

 

[TwoMisfits]

If eating out is killing your budget, then I would buy some very "fast" food to have in the house. It might be more expensive and slightly less healthy than scratch cooking, but it's much healthier and cheaper than constantly eating out. So, if you have to spend $5 to have a bag of chicken nuggets/tenders in the house, do it and chop up some fresh fruit and bake some Pillsbury biscuits to have with the kid meal - it's still a meal done in 5 minutes that soothes the "fast food" desires. If it's burgers that's killing you, buy a box of premade burgers and a bag of hamburger rolls (keep frozen if you never know when you'll eat them) and make a quick salad when that mood strikes. If it's pizza, grab a 3 for $10 frozen pizza or two and make sure to have some fresh carrots and celery with ranch dip to go on the side. Etc, etc...and I get waiting the 2 years for him to get a teaching job, but don't count on it - the market for new teachers is rough (and probably more so if you guys have to be "locked" into a location for your job), so you may need to be able to continue on this path longer than planned...

 

[CandleontheWater]

It doesn't seem do-able to me, but maybe you live in a lower cost of living area. I just don't understand why you went ahead and bought a house, without figuring out how much of your monthly income your mortgage and utilities were going to consume. There is no way I would have been comfortable only have $950 after I paid my monthly bills. What about car insurance, life insurance, medical bills, clothing for the kids, school costs, Christmas, birthdays, house repairs, (if you have pets) vet bills? I understand you have an emergency fund, but my concern would be having to break into the emergency fund and then not being able to replenish it. With only $950 per month for all living expenses, you won't have any wiggle room.

 

[usd2bmd]

The easiest way for us to cut eating out from our budget was all in the planning. I am addicted to pinterest, but that is where we get a lot of our meal ideas from and most of them include things we already have in the house so we arenot spending a lot on that crazy spice that we will only use for one recipe. Thursday after dinner we sit down and come up with a meal plan and make the list from there. It is so much easier to NOT go out when the dinner menu is written on the refrigerator.

 

[bcwife76]

Sorry to be nosy (and really aren't we all lol) but the $50K you have in the bank, is this a slush fund/rainy day fund or is it retirement? Do you already have money set aside in your budget for retirement and other savings?

I don't think we could do $950/month and I'm a SAHM. However we live a in HCOL area, my dh commutes an hour each way to work and gas is expensive here in Canada so we spend $250+ a month on gas for our cars. At least. I've got our grocery budget down to $600/month for our family of 4 (and one big dog) but it wouldn't leave much for activities, etc. Plus we eat out *maybe* once a week. If you could bump that $950 up to, say $1150-$1200 that would probably give you some more breathing room.

 

[TwoMisfits]

$950 should probably be thought of as...
$650 Food and Restaurants (I know you said you spent $500 just for fast food, so this might be a huge change) - you really don't have the money to go over this number, so you'll need to make it work
$100 Gas/Routine Car (Oil Changes/Tune Ups/etc - any money not spent on gas needs to be saved for future months for the routine maintenance)
$100 Clothes/Shoes (This is low, but especially little kids can live on thrift shop and Target/Walmart/Children's Place clothes) - if you don't spend it by the month, save it for the times you do
$100 Slush (Gifts, Doctor Co-Pays, School Items, Red Box, Entertainment, etc) - again, if you don't spend it, you have to save it b/c these costs will come up...

 

[tink9702]

$950 should probably be thought of as...
$650 Food and Restaurants (I know you said you spent $500 just for fast food, so this might be a huge change) - you really don't have the money to go over this number, so you'll need to make it work
$100 Gas/Routine Car (Oil Changes/Tune Ups/etc - any money not spent on gas needs to be saved for future months for the routine maintenance)
$100 Clothes/Shoes (This is low, but especially little kids can live on thrift shop and Target/Walmart/Children's Place clothes) - if you don't spend it by the month, save it for the times you do
$100 Slush (Gifts, Doctor Co-Pays, School Items, Red Box, Entertainment, etc) - again, if you don't spend it, you have to save it b/c these costs will come up...

The above quote is basically how we budget monthly .

$500 towards groceries
$100 towards eating out
$200 for gas/car maintenance
$100 clothes/shoes (a lot of thrift shop clothing for the kids)
$150 personal care items/gifts/entertainment etc.

And that's tough to stick to the #'s above. We really have to plan ahead for clothing purchases and pay attention to the groceries and say no to eating out. but we also have money being set aside for doctor bills since our insurance sucks, savings & vacation funds. So if we were willing to not go on vacation or save anything we would have more money. $950 is a very very tight number, at least here in the Northeast USA.

 

[texaslady22]

Sorry to be nosy (and really aren't we all lol) but the $50K you have in the bank, is this a slush fund/rainy day fund or is it retirement? Do you already have money set aside in your budget for retirement and other savings?

The 50K in the bank is savings; that's our "emergency fund" or whatever you call it. We consider ourselves to be on Baby Step 4 on Dave Ramsey. Our retirement is adequate; we just turned 30 and we have 1.5x our annual income saved, which our retirement guy says is pretty good. We have no savings for our kids college, but I'm a college professor and my children can attend my university free so that's always a choice.

My hubby substitute teaches for $90/day and I did not figure any of that into the equation since he won't have it during the summer (which is coming up). He's been subbing 5 days a week lately so that's like $450/week more than we can figure in. I did not figure this money into the budget because we can't count on it 12 months of the year. There are jobs every single day of the week, without fail, but he's been really picky about what he takes, what grade, etc, and he won't have it in the summer. Still, that's extra money I didn't figure in.

I'm trying to decide how to break things down. We might use $70/month in gas. We have oil changes every couple of months, but don't have to factor in car repairs since we have a warranty and newer vehicles. I'm thinking about getting rid of one of the vehicles, actually. It won't save us much in gas, but we'd save some money in car insurance costs. I'm not sure.

I know I have to budget in food. I do not have to budget clothing since we shop at a twice yearly consignment sale and buy all kids clothes/shoes/swimsuits then (and usually make slightly more selling last year's clothes than we spend on this year's. Hubby volunteers to get us the best % rate). What are you guys considering "personal care" that you mention? What are school fees? We've only been in public school since February, but so far we've been asked to send $5 for a field trip once and we got the teacher a teacher appreciation gift. Are there fees maybe at the beginning of the year (besides school supplies)?

I think we can do this....my goal is to not touch the 50K in the bank at all. We'll see!

 

[barkley]

The 50K in the bank is savings; that's our "emergency fund" or whatever you call it. We consider ourselves to be on Baby Step 4 on Dave Ramsey. Our retirement is adequate; we just turned 30 and we have 1.5x our annual income saved, which our retirement guy says is pretty good. We have no savings for our kids college, but I'm a college professor and my children can attend my university free so that's always a choice.

My hubby substitute teaches for $90/day and I did not figure any of that into the equation since he won't have it during the summer (which is coming up). He's been subbing 5 days a week lately so that's like $450/week more than we can figure in. I did not figure this money into the budget because we can't count on it 12 months of the year. There are jobs every single day of the week, without fail, but he's been really picky about what he takes, what grade, etc, and he won't have it in the summer. Still, that's extra money I didn't figure in.

I'm trying to decide how to break things down. We might use $70/month in gas. We have oil changes every couple of months, but don't have to factor in car repairs since we have a warranty and newer vehicles. I'm thinking about getting rid of one of the vehicles, actually. It won't save us much in gas, but we'd save some money in car insurance costs. I'm not sure.

I know I have to budget in food. I do not have to budget clothing since we shop at a twice yearly consignment sale and buy all kids clothes/shoes/swimsuits then (and usually make slightly more selling last year's clothes than we spend on this year's. Hubby volunteers to get us the best % rate). What are you guys considering "personal care" that you mention? What are school fees? We've only been in public school since February, but so far we've been asked to send $5 for a field trip once and we got the teacher a teacher appreciation gift. Are there fees maybe at the beginning of the year (besides school supplies)?

I think we can do this....my goal is to not touch the 50K in the bank at all. We'll see!

check with your insurance company before you get rid of a car you own outright/have no maintenance on-you might be getting a multi car discount that losing will cause your rates to increase (happened to us once).

"personal care" for us is toiletries and such. I tend to stock up when stuff is on sale so I might not have much in this category for months on end. scrips and known co-pays (ds has 2 set appointments per month) I have budgeted separately. "school fees" seem to vary wildly on the dis-we've lived in 2 states and neither ever charged fees for anything. yes, we provide some minor school supplies (and I stock up on sale/empty the kid's backpacks at the end of the year myself to put the leftovers into plastic bins-dd is in her second year of college and is happily using supplies she remembers from elementary school) but other than a small field trip fee or hot lunches we have no school expenses.

 

[powellrj]

In Indiana we pay book fees every year. For younger kids they are around $100 per child, plus the cost of supplies which can run $50-$100 per kid depending on the teacher. We also pay for all field trips and school extras like shoes for PE. Once they get to middle and high school and you add more expensive books, supplies and sports fees, it gets really expensive!