how tight is your budget?

[KrisM]

Originally Posted by poopstermomma I am in awe that the leftover money you guys have. More specifically, I am wondering why you are bothering to live thriftily? If we had that much money each month, we'd splurge!

Why? Because I like having money in the bank. I like having the security of savings in case something happens (job loss, medical situation, etc). I want DH to be able to retire and not have us living on social security only. I want to be able to take vacations with my kids. I don't want to go into debt ever.

[gabmaxi]

Kind of tight, I'm embarrassed to say. We usually have nothing left over and sometimes put more on our credit cards, and that starts a payback cycle where we pay it off the next month which causes us to be short again. My DH has taken over bills and I've noticed a lot of wine bottles being delivered, so I may have to take over our bills again.

Our mortgage is high, well into the 4 digits, and we can't seem to get ahead. When we bought six years ago we were dual income no kids and now we have dual kids one income. Sigh.

[2+2macht4]

I did not realize we meant after food and gas ect, then I woud say 0 or negative on a bad month.

[Bekki]

Our income basically tripled 5 years ago when DH and FIL started a business together. Before that, we weren't making enough money to make ends meet, so we were charging things like groceries, etc. Once we started making more money, we didn't change our standard of living. We used all of that extra money to start paying off our mountain of debt.

Costs went up for us as we had kids and had to move into a bigger place (went from a $900/month basement apartment to a $1650/month house), but we still have a healthy overage every month.

We're currently searching for land to build a house, because we figured we can get a better deal (since DH does plumbing and heating). We're going to try REALLY hard to keep the project under $300,000 (a low number in this area). Then with taxes ($7000-$8000/month), we'll be looking at a monthly payment of $2300/month or so.

It scares the crap out of me to jump to such a high house payment, but our rent is only so cheap right now because we're renting from friends.

[jbug_4]

Originally Posted by mrsporubsky This. Some of the wiggle room is what myself AND my husband make in a month- he has a bachelors in business and I have a masters in education. What gives here?

For us its been mostly luck and some smart choices. And to be completely honest DH's skills have made us a lot of money. I was working several min wage jobs and going to college. Bouncing checks to pay for books and food. Then a friend of mine recommended me for a job at State Farm (in claims). I got the job and ended up with a salary that paid out more then my 3 min wage jobs (pure luck). It also paid for some of my classes based on my grades and if it could be tied into my job. I met dh who was in the military. Because I worked at State Farm I was able to transfer my job with dh's transfers. We went from both living independent lives to to having double income. We also did not have kids for 3 years. We took advantage and paid of one of our cars, took trips, saved for house down payment. We saved my salary and lived of dh's pay. That gave us a good start. We have managed to sell 2 houses now in a bad economy and make a profit (dh's skills, he remodeled both of them). The profit we then turn around and pay off cars, debts, whatever. DH also got a reenlistment bonus- again used it to pay off stuff, pay for a car. When dh got out of the military he took a job he thought he'd love and we had to tighten up a lot (I was SAH by then). He ended up getting laid off, but because of his nuke background he was a wanted man. He got a job the same week he was laid off (luck and skill). A very good job. Luck got us in, skill has kept him moving up.

[happysmileylady]

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[Computermama]

Originally Posted by Bethany89 Lol my mortgage is 425 for a 3 bedroom house.. On an acre of land and we pay like 250 for groceries a month. Our house has a lot of new remodels to it too lol.. I can't wrap my head around $3K mortgages and some of these grocery budgets. It has soooo much to do with COL!

It really does, considering your monthly budget would be a biweekly budget for me. I spend about $125-$150/week on groceries if we don't eat out and I meal plan well, and the rent (which is just my parent's mortgage payment) is $850/month. And our families are the same size - pregnant mama, DH, and little girl. 3 bedroom house, no acre of land though - we live in town. When we get our own mortgage next year we may be able to knock that down though, I don't think my parents have refi-ed recently, since they were planning to move and sell.

[AniBee]

Bringing this back from the dead...

We're currently living on $2750 a month. DH is on sobatical & won't be returning to work until the new year most likely. We have a 1 bedroom apartment in our home that rents for $490 [only hot water included] so that offsets our $907 mortgage. I have no idea how much is left over after all our bills are paid...I just know we always seem to be broke & it sucks. I've tried budgeting but am not very good at. I've begged DH to budget but he doesn't want to and also feels he'd be no good at it...so I have to suck it up and figure out a way to MAKE myself good at it.

[lynn97]

We make $3,200 a month right now. I also do bookkeeping work when I can find it, which tends to add $3-500 a month. We have a $400 mortgage and a $350 car payment (for about 6 more months). No other debts. We pay around $150 for utilities and $400 for groceries/personal care. Health insurance is $500. We live in the country, though, so gas costs about $400 a month...hopefully we'll be able to move to town soon. I just quit working FT to stay home with DS and a future LO (hopefully). Simple living and good saving/debt reduction have put us in a really good place for now.

Sent from my iPhone using DS Forum

[KaleidoscopeEyes]

I make $9.50/hr and we are over budget every month despite living very frugally. if we didnt have DH's student loan payment and the CC debt we would break even. im hoping we get the CC paid off with our next tax return. we are seriously considering going on foodstamps since we have to charge our food to the CC.