What's the minimum level of monthly income minus mortgage you'd feel comfortable with?

[Anonymous]

OP here -- just to get everyone on the same page, if you're tossing out a number, go with take-home pay after mortgage, escrowed property taxes, etc.

Literally, "how much money do you need showing up in your bank account each month"

[Anonymous]

After all 3 mortgages, student loans, utilities, car loan and all other bills we live just fine on $2000 a month. About $600 for food/gas and $1400 is for incidentals ( parking, eating out, cvs, entertainment and so on) and for "wasting". We have 2 kids an live NW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:6-7 is the absolute minimum I'd be comfortable with.

Same here and that's well below what we currently have left after mortgage and childcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here -- just to get everyone on the same page, if you're tossing out a number, go with take-home pay after mortgage, escrowed property taxes, etc.

Literally, "how much money do you need showing up in your bank account each month"

I think that is confusing everyone - what shows up in our bank acccount each month include the cost to cover our mortgage. We take mortgage out after that point.

I have 2 older kids in school, no daycare. Our health insurance comes out before our take home (as does maxing our 401Ks) - take home just under $12K. $4,250 goes to PITI. So after that we have $7,500 left over, which is about the minimum I am comfortable with. It goes towards:

529s - $1300
IRA - $916
Savings - $1000
Utilities - $450
Cell phones - $120
Yearly Expenses Account (kid's activities, camps, car insurance, life insurance, vacation) - $1000
Everthing else - food, clothes, gas, etc. - goes on credit card - Average $2700/month

[Anonymous]

Being frugal but comfortable:

5,100 public school, one kid.
(7,600 private school, one kid.)

Aftercare, summer camps - 650
Extra curriculars - 325
Food and household supplies, clothing - 2,500
Phone and internet - 240
Car insurance - 100
Utilities/garbage - 275
Savings/college - 1,000
(Tuition if private - 2,500)

[Anonymous]

PP here: My figures exclude Ppty taxes and mortgage

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:6-7 is the absolute minimum I'd be comfortable with.

Same here and that's well below what we currently have left after mortgage and childcare.

Same question as previously -- where do you see all of that money going?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being frugal but comfortable:

5,100 public school, one kid.
(7,600 private school, one kid.)

Aftercare, summer camps - 650
Extra curriculars - 325
Food and household supplies, clothing - 2,500
Phone and internet - 240
Car insurance - 100
Utilities/garbage - 275
Savings/college - 1,000
(Tuition if private - 2,500)

Thanks for the detailed breakdown! This is a very different budget than I'd see for myself under the same circumstances (absolutely nothing wrong with that), very useful to see how different folks structure their finances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here -- just to get everyone on the same page, if you're tossing out a number, go with take-home pay after mortgage, escrowed property taxes, etc.

Literally, "how much money do you need showing up in your bank account each month"

This is a weird way to budget for kids, OP. I think you need to sit down with a financial planner, and see what you can afford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being frugal but comfortable:

5,100 public school, one kid.
(7,600 private school, one kid.)

Aftercare, summer camps - 650
Extra curriculars - 325
Food and household supplies, clothing - 2,500
Phone and internet - 240
Car insurance - 100
Utilities/garbage - 275
Savings/college - 1,000
(Tuition if private - 2,500)

Thanks for the detailed breakdown! This is a very different budget than I'd see for myself under the same circumstances (absolutely nothing wrong with that), very useful to see how different folks structure their finances.

Then why don't you list out your projected budget, and we'll tell you if your assumptions are realistic. Then you'll know how much money you need, add your mortgage, and you'll know what your take home needs to be. Then you can add in healthcare/retirement and other pre-tax costs, estimate income taxes, and reverse engineer what your salary needs to be.

[Anonymous]

14:27 here:

To 14:41, curious how you'd break it down? I would love to save more, reduce the food/household bucket, but my spouse will not agree to spending less on food and household, and that's the main area jn which I see flexibility.

[Anonymous]

Family of two twentysomethings, no kids yet. Our budget is as follows:

Total $5k after PITI and maximizing our matched retirement contributions (double match for me, triple match for her).

$1k for house-related things (recently bought house, still lots of furniture to buy, things to repair, etc)
$1k for travel (not same spending every month, but that's what it balances out to. Our major luxury expense, we do 4 international trips a year and fly home to visit my family once a month.)
$1k for savings
$900 for food ($450 per person, AKA ~$15 per day, more than that on days where we eat out, less than that on days where we cook)
$100 for phones + Internet (100 Mbps RCN @ $60 a month, my phone plus her phone is $40 a month with Google Project Fi)
$100 for transportation (Our jobs provide a lot of metro credit for us each month, but we sometimes go over. We don't own a car. the rest is Uber)
$100 for utilities (gas / electric / water)
$800 for 'entertainment' of all different sorts combined (nightlife, concert tickets, clothes purchases, etc etc)

Feels like it would be doable for kids, assuming we traveled way less, went out way less, and we're not buying new furniture left and right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14:27 here:

To 14:41, curious how you'd break it down? I would love to save more, reduce the food/household bucket, but my spouse will not agree to spending less on food and household, and that's the main area jn which I see flexibility.

14:41 here, not saying that in your exact scenario I'd do things differently More saying that despite a top line number that's the same we're in different scenarios in other respects that result in a different cost structure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:6-7 is the absolute minimum I'd be comfortable with.

Even assuming a full-time stay at home parent, and after mortgage? We have less than that after mortgage right now with no kids and feel wealthy beyond measure. Where do you see that much money going?

I guess we live a different lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

And as you're doing a line item of budget and savings, honestly I would account for putting SOMETHING away for the kids' eventual college in the US. I know more than one immigrant who has said -- oh I will raise my kids to love my country just like I do and they have TONS of family there so of course they'll go to college there. Well 18 yrs later -- the kid who is born and raised in America may consider himself 100% American and may not be interested in going to college in Australia when all his buddies are going to NYU. As for -- well I'll just force him -- easier said than done if you get a child that says, well fine, I don't really want to go to college anyway.