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[Canova]

Ooo, this is fun. I fix my budget forecast once a month to make it more in line with what my actual budget numbers are doing. Here's the most recent.

I might have to adjust these further once we get the new electric bill, and our water and garbage are due every three months, so...

wow. you're very organized. I'm not that detailed when keeping my budget. I just deposit some X to my investment/savings, then use the rest for my expenses

 

[Alfarif]

wow. you're very organized. I'm not that detailed when keeping my budget. I just deposit some X to my investment/savings, then use the rest for my expenses

That's just our forecast. We have an entirely other spreadsheet for each individual transaction. I don't like not knowing what every dollar I have is doing. It drives me nuts to be standing at a place and wondering "Do I actually have enough to cover this?"

 

[Korey]

wow. you're very organized. I'm not that detailed when keeping my budget. I just deposit some X to my investment/savings, then use the rest for my expenses

For anyone that wants to track their monthly spending without having to do anything, I recommend mint.com.

It automatically retrieves/parses your credit card activity and generates nice graphs and charts to see how much you're spending in each category, and you can also see if you're going over or under your average monthly budget.

Also you can link all of your financial accounts to it (banks/credit cards/retirement accounts/loans/stocks/etc) and it'll show you your net worth.

 

[Canova]

That's just our forecast. We have an entirely other spreadsheet for each individual transaction. I don't like not knowing what every dollar I have is doing. It drives me nuts to be standing at a place and wondering "Do I actually have enough to cover this?"

I can never do that. bravo

 

[G-Bus]

Neato.

Rent: $400
Cell phone: $80
Bus Pass: $70
Food: $400 (includes eating out)
Internet: $45
Credit Card: $50+
Marijuana: $???? :lol

I think that's about it.

Edit - Note to self. DO NOT get a mortgage. That's just fucking crazy.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Hmm, I haven't been living in my new place for long so it could change, but currently it's about...

$150 for groceries per month
$265 for rent [split from $530]
About $20 for electricity [split from $40]
About $30 for Internet

So $465 a month, not counting entertainment, which I would say is $60-100 amongst me and my roommate.

 

[Alfarif]

For anyone that wants to track their monthly spending without having to do anything, I recommend mint.com.

It automatically retrieves/parses your credit card activity and generates nice graphs and charts to see how much you're spending in each category, and you can also see if you're going over or under your average monthly budget.

Also you can link all of your financial accounts to it (banks/credit cards/retirement accounts/loans/stocks/etc) and it'll show you your net worth.

We actually have Mint.com active as well. It does pretty much everything we like, but we like to keep a local copy of what's going on, but it's nice to have the Mint alerts as well.

I can never do that. bravo

It really works for us, because of the way we do our money. Instead of a big chunk, we divide up the money every time we get it, regardless of whether a bill is due. So, for instance, if it's my pay week, I will take out a virtual chunk for the mortgage, a virtual chunk for groceries, so on and so forth. At the end of the mandatory bills, we take out a virtual percentage (2.5%, 5%, 10%, or 15%) for other things like vacation, medical bills, home maintenance, car maintenance, etc. It's pretty handy and we never drop below a couple thousand in our checking out with this method. If something does happen, we have a major cushion that we can pull from. Every three months, there's an extra week in which all of that extra money just becomes part of that cushion, so if anything happened to us (job wise) we would have several months to cover the bills for that particular category.

 

[The Chosen One]

How do you guys keep your food costs so low?

If I'm being thrifty I can barely get by with just $700 for the whole month. Otherwise it's more like $900 - 1,000.

I have a family of four, btw.

 

[foomfoom415]

I have a family of four, btw.

I'd wager that's your answer right there. Being able to feed a family of four on $700 a month qualifies you to consider yourself keeping food costs low in my book :lol

I'm impressed at the mortgage payments. I've never considered buying a house, but the payments listed here are pretty close to what I'd pay for rent in any of the cities I've lived. I still don't think I could ever bring myself to buy a house though :lol

 

[Alfarif]

How do you guys keep your food costs so low?

If I'm being thrifty I can barely get by with just $700 for the whole month. Otherwise it's more like $900 - 1,000.

I have a family of four, btw.

Is that including eating out? What kind of food does your family eat? What is their activity level?

In general, my wife and I have a monthly menu that says what we will eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for each day. We buy only these ingredients, with snacks being fruits and nuts instead of junk food. We eat less doing that, since junk food has virtually no nutritious value. Then it's all about the coupon clipping and getting items that are on sale. Sometimes we have to substitute another meal for a particular day, but it helps keep our expenses low. We might put aside $100 for a week but we usually only spend about $60 or $70. The extra is for eating out on the weekend.

 

[Vicetrailia]

The biggest are my rent at $300, food at $250, Cable+Internet $155, and misc entertainment at HOLY SHIT I really need to stop drinking/dump my girl.

About to have a car payment soon, just gotta save up some more cash which means dammit, full coverage insurance .

Maybe I should rethink that.

 

[mr stroke]

How do you guys keep your food costs so low?

If I'm being thrifty I can barely get by with just $700 for the whole month. Otherwise it's more like $900 - 1,000.

I have a family of four, btw

you nailed it

 

[Wellington]

welcome to overpriced California(even more so when we bought the house in 2007)

But if you live in NYC, isn't that MORE than any where else in the US? I would love to move to NYC but a 1000 sq ft apt would cost me what- 500-600k in the city?(easily a 3-5k mortgage payment)

Yeah I bought a two fam house a while back, my mortgage was originally $3100, luckily I rent out the upstairs for $1400 so I was covering $1700. I refinanced to get it down to $2540, so I'm only coming out of pocket 1140. Could be worse I guess, at least it's a two family.

Reason the property is that cheap is that I am in the Bronx.

 

[The Chosen One]

Yeah, it includes eating out. Basically two adults and two children.

If I'm buying healthy food my expenses go up....

 

[Mohonky]

$79 (Internet)
$200 (Credit)
$400 (Food)
$200 (Smokes) *Farkkkkk
$30 (Fuel)

Bit over $900.....damn I gotta quit smoking. Living in the parents house (but not actually paying rent or having parents live with me) is a real life saver at the moment.

 

[Alfarif]

Yeah, it includes eating out. Basically two adults and two children.

If I'm buying healthy food my expenses go up....

Try the monthly menu thing first. If a lot of your grocery shopping is spur of the moment, then that could raise your expenses. And clip tons of coupons when you can. It may also be time to switch from name brand to generic in almost everything you purchase. This was one of the things that brought our budget under control by about $200 a month alone. And I can't tell the difference between most generics and the name brand they copy (and prefer the generic variety in the ones I can). The only thing that generic just hasn't gotten right are pizza rolls. Totinos will rules there.

 

[Mr.Squirrel]

About 17 million dollars a month, give or take 17 million dollars.

 

[NintendoGal]

Rent: $1250 (3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, 2 car garage townhome)
Electricity: ~$100-$199
Water: $30
Trash: $30
Car Insurance: $45
Comcast: $60
Sprint: $40
Gas: $100+ (Husband drives from Auburn to Redmond everyday)
Groceries: $300

 

[Dogenzaka]

I myself probably eat about $400 in groceries a month lmao.

I'm going to move out to college soon, and I suspect my rent will be about $400-600 a month.

So probably
$400 for food
$400-600 for rent
$???? in electricity
$100 in miscellaneous/entertainment
$50 for random house supplies/gas.

Not too bad I'd say.

I think my parents are paying the rest (insurance, cell phone, internet, etc.)

If I'm buying healthy food my expenses go up....

That's probably why my food bill's so high. I buy healthy stuff a lot.

I just bought ingredients for a dinner, some drinks for the week, and some random snacks, and it came out to be almost $50 xD

 

[Cereal KiIIer]

Rent: 565$ (utilities are included)
Internet: 50$
Cellphone: 85$
Bus pass: 50$
Drugs: 50$
College: 30$ (I love socialism)
Food: 250$
?: too much

 

[Puddles]

I'm over in Korea.

My apartment is covered by the school, but it's about $300 that I'm not getting in salary.
I pay about $50 to eat lunch at school every day (well worth it).
About $50 gets taken out for medical insurance.
I spend about $160 on groceries a month.
Utilities have been around $100 a month, but those should be dropping now that the weather is warming up.
The real kicker is going out/socializing. I probably spend a good $600 a month on drinks, lunches and dinners with friends, cab rides home, etc.

 

[Future]

Goddam everyone with sub $500 rent. My rent is 1500. Fuck california

 

[industrian]

My last month in Korea consists of (in money saving mode):

Rent: $0
Food: $0
Bills: $270 (maintenence, electricity, gas, water, cell-phone - for two months I may add. Didn't pay March.)

My previous months in Korea went pretty much like this:

Rent: $0
Food: $225
Bills: $110

Yeah. Straight up ballin'.