$14k net HHI - Budget Input

[Anonymous]

What's normal is that people work until age 65 or even later if their health holds out. Why be normal? Why not aim for financial control and independence at a younger age? That's so much more valuable than luxury cars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:cut the housecleaner down to monthly.

sell one/both cars and buy something that's already 7 or 8 years old

cut the kid's activities/lessons. Any time you have one kid and you're simultaneously paying for "activities/lessons" and diapers in the same month, you're pissing money away.

you shouldn't be spending $200 monthly for cell phones.

I've more than solved your budget problem here already.

^^Also, if you have a nanny, WTF are you paying for P/T "preschool" for a diapered baby?

Preschool is not daycare

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am in a similar income bracket and have similar mortgage and childcare expenses. One thing that helps my marriage and my budget is that my husband and I both get a portion of each paycheck as personal spending money, and we combine the rest. This (around $500 per month) is what we use for lunches at work (if we eat out), plans with friends, haircuts, clothes, personal hobbies, etc...

Usually we use our combined funds for family gifts, wedding gifts, etc.. but if i want to send a friend flowers or contribute to someone's charity bike ride on a whim I do it with my personal money.

For me, it's easier to skip eating out or go a little longer between highlight appointments when i know I'm saving my personal money for a pair of shoes or something. Also if it's something frivolous for the house that's a want rather than a need, I'll often use personal money. Similarly, my husband buys lottery tickets and sometimes buys expensive sports tickets and I don't worry about it b/c it doesn't hit the family budget at all. This might help you guys cut down on the shopping and personal care budgets- because you are owning your choices within a certain budget...and you can choose expensive haircuts, or shoes, or lunches at work, but maybe not all three.

Yes! We do this too - we call it our allowances. I buy my clothes, most kids clothes, lunches, personal care, etc etc from my allowance money. Just bought two new pillows from TJ Maxx, so house stuff comes from it too. After picking up DS from practice, we decided to get inexpensive take out rather than drive home and eat leftovers - I bought it from my allowance (and after consideration, saved half because I decided I wasn't as hungry and could wait 30 minutes until we got home).

It's $300 per pay period for each of us.

Kids clothes and house stuff comes from _your_ allowance? Including takeout with your child? Whoa.

Original poster about the "personal spending money/allowance." I would consider these things personal expenditures unless they are needs (i.e. daughter doesn't need new clothes but i saw something cute and couldn't resist...same with takeout when there is perfectly fine food at home). I obviously don't buy furniture or anything major but picking up an impulse throw pillow at TJ maxx I would use this account for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What does this work out to be as gross income?

Just curious.

OP here- Our base without bonuses is $280k, works out to ~ $14k after retirement/taxes/etc

Here is a car reality check for you OP. My DH makes $250k and I don't work (so no childcare expenses.) He drives a 2011 Hyundai Sonata sedan and I drive a 2014 Honda Pilot. Both were purchased in full with cash. No plans to car shop anytime soon.

Your "peers" with fancy cars either make more than you or are losing money like you. Or they don't have an investment property, etc.

THANK YOU for saying this. OP really sounds like typical keeping up with the Joneses. My brother is a partner at E&Y and clears well over 500k a year. They have a paid off 2015 Mazda CX9 and a 2014 Hyundai Sonata.

OP here - After going through this review of our own finances I'm guessing our peers are also losing money. We're clearing about $330k after bonuses but can barely seem to break even. I appreciate the reality check as I guess we need it.

We make about $400,000 per year, and we drive more low-key cars. Most people I know that drive an Audi and Mercedes have way way higher income than you do.

[Anonymous]

OP, you can't overspend on cars *and* food *and* kid stuff. You have to pick. Plenty of people in your bracket may be somewhat extravagant in one area or maybe two, but not three or more. We're in your bracket and have a comparable car payment but much less in other areas. We're comfortable and saving well-you can enjoy the things you want to enjoy, and I think you should, but you need to prioritize what those are unless you start making more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you can't overspend on cars *and* food *and* kid stuff. You have to pick. Plenty of people in your bracket may be somewhat extravagant in one area or maybe two, but not three or more. We're in your bracket and have a comparable car payment but much less in other areas. We're comfortable and saving well-you can enjoy the things you want to enjoy, and I think you should, but you need to prioritize what those are unless you start making more.

This is the problem. op is overspending in every category except her house, which I assume from the mortgage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I am in a similar income bracket and have similar mortgage and childcare expenses. One thing that helps my marriage and my budget is that my husband and I both get a portion of each paycheck as personal spending money, and we combine the rest. This (around $500 per month) is what we use for lunches at work (if we eat out), plans with friends, haircuts, clothes, personal hobbies, etc...

Usually we use our combined funds for family gifts, wedding gifts, etc.. but if i want to send a friend flowers or contribute to someone's charity bike ride on a whim I do it with my personal money.

For me, it's easier to skip eating out or go a little longer between highlight appointments when i know I'm saving my personal money for a pair of shoes or something. Also if it's something frivolous for the house that's a want rather than a need, I'll often use personal money. Similarly, my husband buys lottery tickets and sometimes buys expensive sports tickets and I don't worry about it b/c it doesn't hit the family budget at all. This might help you guys cut down on the shopping and personal care budgets- because you are owning your choices within a certain budget...and you can choose expensive haircuts, or shoes, or lunches at work, but maybe not all three.

Yes! We do this too - we call it our allowances. I buy my clothes, most kids clothes, lunches, personal care, etc etc from my allowance money. Just bought two new pillows from TJ Maxx, so house stuff comes from it too. After picking up DS from practice, we decided to get inexpensive take out rather than drive home and eat leftovers - I bought it from my allowance (and after consideration, saved half because I decided I wasn't as hungry and could wait 30 minutes until we got home).

It's $300 per pay period for each of us.

Kids clothes and house stuff comes from _your_ allowance? Including takeout with your child? Whoa.

Original poster about the "personal spending money/allowance." I would consider these things personal expenditures unless they are needs (i.e. daughter doesn't need new clothes but i saw something cute and couldn't resist...same with takeout when there is perfectly fine food at home). I obviously don't buy furniture or anything major but picking up an impulse throw pillow at TJ maxx I would use this account for.

I feel like the op of this subthread and I are twins. Yeah, on the face of it, what I typed does seem a little off balance - my allowance pays for kid clothes and a kid take out meal. It's not a hard and fast rule. I could have easily used the joint accountt. When it's a stock up trip on clothes, that's from the joint account. But see a shirt here or there that's for fun, I put that on my account. Same with the take out dinner. We had a dinner plan, we had food to heat up at home, take out just sort of happened, and it's near the end of the pay period and I haven't bought much else so there's room for it there. SH would do the same if he does something with the kids - sometimes his money, sometimes joint money. It's just a balance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:cut the housecleaner down to monthly.

sell one/both cars and buy something that's already 7 or 8 years old

cut the kid's activities/lessons. Any time you have one kid and you're simultaneously paying for "activities/lessons" and diapers in the same month, you're pissing money away.

you shouldn't be spending $200 monthly for cell phones.

I've more than solved your budget problem here already.

^^Also, if you have a nanny, WTF are you paying for P/T "preschool" for a diapered baby?

Preschool is not daycare

OP said the child is 18 months. She does not need "preschool" or "classes" (of any type) any more than she needs a Mercedes SUV to be driven around in.

[Anonymous]

Don't worry so much about the smaller items like personal care and children's classes where people like to snark . You'll realize the most savings if you concentrate on big ticket items you can easily adjust. Obviously the property situation is difficult to change and may in fact be okay if you can stop the losses on the investment property. People have mentioned the car payments are really high and those can be traded. The other thing is childcare. It is very high in this area, however, typically does decrease as kids get older. I would see if there is anyway to reduce that 3k in the short term. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

We have two kids in full time preschool at $2750 a month, so your childcare for one child is on the higher side. Perhaps your nanny can do some light cleaning etc and you can get rid of your house cleaners.

Also, if you're entertaining friends at home/party, then do not go out for a nice dinner, or vice versa. We also have a $500/month entertainment budget, but if we buy nice food items for having friends over, we won't go out. Put entertaining in the home, drinks out and dinner/take out all in the same pot and keep it to $500 or so. The $600 or so you'll save can go towards vacations or long term savings/renovations.

[Anonymous]

I just saw this thread. At 14K take home, OP has a HHI of probably 300K/yr.

My take home is 8K/month.
I am less than half in every category except medical expenses (which are 500/mo).

Learn to good 30 minute meals. That is what I do -- It is easy to feed a family dinner for $15 dollars for a nice meal with organic food.

[Anonymous]

The only people I know who drive luxury cars have annual salaries in the seven figure or very, very high six figure range. So your peer group does it differently - so what. Stop it. You don't have enough money for luxury cars. End of story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hang tight, OP. I'm setting up a Go Fund Me page for you.

you made me laugh so hard!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only people I know who drive luxury cars have annual salaries in the seven figure or very, very high six figure range. So your peer group does it differently - so what. Stop it. You don't have enough money for luxury cars. End of story.

This cracKS me up because it reminds me of a family at my dc's preschool. They can't afford a house in a good school district for elementary school but they just bought their 2nd luxury suv. Why not throw that 50k at a higher mortgage so you can live in a better neighborhood? They were fretting about this at a party last year and today I saw the mom drive up in her brand new lexis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The only people I know who drive luxury cars have annual salaries in the seven figure or very, very high six figure range. So your peer group does it differently - so what. Stop it. You don't have enough money for luxury cars. End of story.

This cracKS me up because it reminds me of a family at my dc's preschool. They can't afford a house in a good school district for elementary school but they just bought their 2nd luxury suv. Why not throw that 50k at a higher mortgage so you can live in a better neighborhood? They were fretting about this at a party last year and today I saw the mom drive up in her brand new lexis.

We have neighbors up the street in their 70 year old 1,100 sq ft house in Falls Church with two luxury SUVs in the driveway. Not uncommon to see around here.