A Breakdown of Your Monthly Budget?

Glonoinha asks: "I just finished balancing the checkbook after doing a stack of bills, the out-pile being higher than the in-pile, and I was wondering...do I completely underestimate the cost of living a regular lifestyle or am I getting taken for a ride? I am not interested in comparing paychecks, there are already plenty of studies out there to prove we are underpaid (well, most of us) - I am more interested in the overall picture. Where are you spending it? Post as an AC if you feel the need, but I am interested in a breakdown of monthly pre-tax income, taxes taken out, money put towards retirement, child support or alimony, mortgage or rent, car payment, medical insurance, car insurance, electricity, gas, water, entertainment, savings, liquor, food, vehicle maintenance, computer toys, and any other column you care to break out."

"The purchase price of your home, car, or any other property would be relevant if you were to include an indication to where you were geographically, and how you felt it was in relation to the rest of the region. If you were to include the type of work you do I would group those accordingly. If you are part of a two (or more) income residence, handle that however you wish but make a note of it so I can better tweak the dataset.

With a decent dataset made available I would be willing to do some statistical analysis and make the charts / compiled data available for download.

If you are not already doing a breakdown along these lines it may be an eye opener for your own use (but share it here to help make the dataset larger, more accurate.)"

Comments

You got it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure. I take home about $7000/month. My wife takes home $1000-$2000 depending on her part time schedule.

• Mortage = $2950/month on my $400k loan. House in Massachusetts, just refinanced late last year.
• Car #1: $400/month, 2000 Volvo XC.
• Car #2: $200/month, leased Honda Accord
• Cell Phones: $80, T-Mobile family plan
• Comcast (cable+internet): $120 (includes movie channel package)
• Regular phone: $65 (Verizon)
• Electric : $80ish
• Oil heat: about 4 fillups a year, $350/per.
• Going out to eat: $150/month
• Food shopping: no budgeted amount but I can tell you I spent $400 in two visits over the past couple of weeks
• Student loans: none. Paid off when we got ahead on cash.
• Investments: $200/month into an SP index fund. Used to be $600, I cut back.

That's about all I can think of to itemize. Of course the last big budget item would go under "misc living expenses" and includes everything like special circumstances, travel/holidays/vacations, gifts, and so on, and usuaully ends up over $1500/month.

Nothing special going into the baby's college yet, save for UPromise (loyalty program), holiday/relative money, and random transfers.

No special money going to retirement outside of the company 401k for both my wife and myself.

I'm pleased to say that we manage to keep an emergency savings fund of about $40k in the bank, too.

What I found...

[Fished]

What I've found is that it's not so important how much you budget as knowing how much you budget. If you're like I was, you probably run your checkbook on a "I think I have about *this* much" basis, and certainly have no budgeting in place. I tried for years to use Quicken and the like, but they don't fit the way I think. Not too long ago, I started using Budget from www.snowmintcs.com. This implements the old "Envelope Budgeting" system in software.

The idea is that you have a set of envelopes representing each budget category, then you allocate money to each category when you get paid. It's all pretty automated. The software is, unfortunately, somewhat rough around the edges sometimes, but it works (and is much better than Quicken/Mac). Support is great.

Also, you can find a budget categories calculator at http://www.crown.org/Tools/budgetguide.asp . While it is Christian-based, the categories are not really much different because of that. (Which, unfortunately, may say something about the kind of "Christianity" espoused.)

Re:Enjoy this anonymous post

[Anonymous Coward]

State: Illinios (Metro-East St Louis, MO, ie right across the river)

Profession: Low/Mid IT (Hardware Tech)
$$$: 37500.00 base (I do get 10-12 hrs OT a month)
Avg Monthly after taxes: 2600.00
Gender: Male
Dependents: Wife + 3
Rent: 575.00
Car Loan: 320.00
Gas: 120.00
Food: 250.00 (this is a guess, we buy it if we need it [and have the cash], and twice a month, we stock up)
Phone (2 cells / no land-line): 70.00
Cable+internet: 50.00 (have to get at least the basic 15.00 cable to get internet - Charter SUX!)
Power+gas: 100.00
water:10-12.00
Pizza+beer+eating out: A lot
I know we spend too much on the above. I bought Quicken basic for my wife and she has started plotting our expenses. Last month we spent over 300 on eating out. This month we are really trying to cut back. I'm hoping that we can start saving cash, as we seem to live paycheck to paycheck.

Partly just to see the itemization myself:

[recursiv]

I work part-time with an hourly wage of $13.75/hour. After taxes, this comes out to a net income of about $680/month.

Expenses (/month)
Rent: $370
Food: ~$100
Utilities, cable, internet: ~$50 (I live with 4 room mates)
Cell: $45

And then there are miscellaneous things, like CDRW media and what have you. Occasionally I have to pay something huge, like tuition, or I get a nice tax refund or something, but I'm pretty much breaking even right now.

Grad Student

[Anonymous Coward]

I am PhD student in CS at a large university in the midwest. I have two positions, an RA (research, not resident) and a TA.

Of $3200 gross income a month, I take $2900 home.

Here's the breakdown:

$ 645 Rent
$ 100 Electricity
$ 50 Home Phone
$ 40 Cell Phone
$ 46 Cable
$ 25 High-speed Internet
$ 25 Tap water
$ 25 Delivered water
$ 250 Direct loan payment
$1000 Credit Card payment

The rest gets blown on food (mostly dining out, but some groceries), entertainment, and god knows what else. I just realized I waste a ton of money. Thanks guys!

Re:Strange circumstances

[maxume]

Unless your student loans are at some rediculousely low interest rate( like 2%), you should consider accelerating the rate at which you are paying them off. With the economy like it is, eliminating expensive debt is usually of more benefit than earning crappy interest...