Input on my (possibly too detailed) budget

Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:How much do you currently have in your emergency fund?

You could put your leftover $420 a month into a “life happens” fund to cover those unusual but not really emergency things to that pop up.

If you’re about to move, there will undoubtedly be things you need to (or want to) but for the new house.

Things missing: life insurance?


OP:

Emergency fund is $15k. Not enough, I know. Working on it. Not sure if I should be putting less into retirement and more into the emergency fund...

I like the idea of a "life happens" fund! I guess at the end of the month I'll scoop up whatever's left and put it in one of the suggested vehicles (someone has suggested a "house emergency" fund, too). Or maybe I should put it all into the e-fund for a while.

Our take-home accounts for life insurance, which is through our employers.

Thanks for the input!
Anonymous
So no savings that are just put aside for later? Nada in savings?
Adult lunches/spending money $500 per month? In addition to pretty small grocery budget of 800, meaning 200 per week. Which as there sounds to be the three of you, is not that bad at all with a small child. Nobody needs $500 per month for lunches. Put that money in savings.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:So no savings that are just put aside for later? Nada in savings?
Adult lunches/spending money $500 per month? In addition to pretty small grocery budget of 800, meaning 200 per week. Which as there sounds to be the three of you, is not that bad at all with a small child. Nobody needs $500 per month for lunches. Put that money in savings.


I was assuming that was for lunches, clothes, haircuts, etc. like their monthly allowance basically.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:So no savings that are just put aside for later? Nada in savings?
Adult lunches/spending money $500 per month? In addition to pretty small grocery budget of 800, meaning 200 per week. Which as there sounds to be the three of you, is not that bad at all with a small child. Nobody needs $500 per month for lunches. Put that money in savings.


I was assuming that was for lunches, clothes, haircuts, etc. like their monthly allowance basically.


Yeah, me too. I was gonna point out not accounting for haircuts, but saw that $500.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Health care costs- deductibles, co-pays
Life insurance
Expected non-recurring expenses- this is for those things that happen every month - but are one offs. Something breaks and has to be replaced, budgetary item as s over budget for that month, twisted ankle and need crutches....


OP:

Health care -- putting aside $75/mo in the FSA for co-pays. Hopefully that's enough.

Life insurance comes out of our paychecks, so pre-take-home.

"Expected non-recurring expenses" -- this is exactly the category I'm struggling with, trying to figure out what those things might be and have enough in each budget. What kind of things were you thinking of? Toaster breaks, it comes out of household. If you can think of other examples, please share so I can figure out what category they should come out of it and if that category needs to be expanded. Thanks!
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Personal care? ie haircuts, nails


Believe it or not, we spend $0 on this category -- it's a long story -- but it's true. If one of us decided that we wanted something like that, though, it would come out of the $250/mo each we have of "fun money".

Thanks, it's really helpful to think out what extra expenses might be.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Clothing? It doesn’t seem like you are buying that much (on this budget) from
amazon, query whether prime is worth the expense?


Thanks, good thought. We actuallybuy a ton from Amazon, it's just all from the existing categories. A bunch of our groceries and household come from Subscribe & Save. We also use Prime Video a lot. And I pay for Amazon Music out of my "fun" money every month.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:That’s crazy tight. Real life always costs more. Significantly more. Just thinking they this weekend’s spending (even though it’s only Sunday morning), we spent over 350 unexpected items. I would add at least 25% buffer.


What kind of things did you buy? 350 on "unexpected items" is a lot and I can't even imagine it...

I can't make 25% more and expand all categories by 25%, but I can move around anything that's not in the "Fixed expenses" category. If you'd shuffle things around, please feel free to suggest! Thanks.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:65 for 2 phones? What kind of fairytale is that?


Ha! Believe it or not, that was me rounding up. Our phone plans are one on Boost mobile, for $35/mo. One on Mint Mobile, for $240/year (I prepay) -- so actually only $20/mo.

This is reminding me, though, that although my phone is newish (iPhone 11), my spouse is still clinging to a 5s and doesn't want to upgrade -- but someday will have to (although that 5s seems to be a tank that will never die). We buy our phones outright, so should put some money aside for that. Our electronics in general probably need a fund. We're nerds and enjoy our gadgets; if our iPads die, we'll want new ones. I'll have to think about how that should be funded and where we can squeeze the money.
Anonymous
I would double-check what kind of life insurance you get through work. Also, what happens if you lose your job? I would seriously consider getting 30 year term policies for both of you now while you are still young.

Are you planning on more kids?

Doesn't look like you're maxing retirement or doing any after-tax savings? Any chance of pay increases in the future, or are you pretty much at your max?

If you have to buy a new car, your e-fund will seriously be depleted, and then you will be putting less towards it with the new car payments. Just something to keep in mind. It's tight, hope both of you are on the same page as far as spending.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:So no savings that are just put aside for later? Nada in savings?
Adult lunches/spending money $500 per month? In addition to pretty small grocery budget of 800, meaning 200 per week. Which as there sounds to be the three of you, is not that bad at all with a small child. Nobody needs $500 per month for lunches. Put that money in savings.


There isn't generic savings -- but I have savings for
- emergency fund
- car maintenance/repair (this may be too low)
- home maintenance
- health expenses

It sounds like you're suggesting a "life happens" fund like a previous poster. I like the idea, just have to figure out where else to trim from to put the money in there.

The one part of this plan that I'm confident about is the grocery/gas/household/spending money amount. We've actually been doing this for several years; each month we transfer $1000 to a shared account for groceries/gas/household, and $250 into each of our personal accounts. The only time we run out of money in the shared account is if we went crazy with the takeout -- in which case we each chip in some of our fun money to get through the end of the month. It doesn't happen too often, and when it does we usually know why and someone usually said "I don't care, I want sushi tonight, if we run out of food money I'll pay for it."

So our $250/mo actually covers not just lunches (I spent $0 on lunch since I WFH full time these days), but anything that doesn't feel like a mutual expense. I pay for videogames and Amazon music out of it. Spouse pays for some subscription channels on Amazon Prime that nobody else watches, a paid online community, hobby materials, etc. We also get each other (small) gifts out of it for holidays and birthdays.

The separate fun-money accounts are pretty much what makes our marriage work, since we never have to justify little purchases to each other, or be afraid that the other person is going to ruin our budget with {personal expenditure that the other person considers superfluous}. We have literally not fought about money since we started doing it this way in 2016. It's great. Saved us a ton of money on divorce.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:That’s crazy tight. Real life always costs more. Significantly more. Just thinking they this weekend’s spending (even though it’s only Sunday morning), we spent over 350 unexpected items. I would add at least 25% buffer.


What kind of things did you buy? 350 on "unexpected items" is a lot and I can't even imagine it...

I can't make 25% more and expand all categories by 25%, but I can move around anything that's not in the "Fixed expenses" category. If you'd shuffle things around, please feel free to suggest! Thanks.


I'm not that PP, but mine end up being household/house maintenance things often. Like my router just died and I had to buy a new one. I just had to replace two smoke detectors that were at end of life (and I bought fancy ones so it was more expensive). A light fixture broke and had to be replaced. A plumber visit. Etc.
.
Anonymous
Do you have HOA dues? Also I think home maintenance is too low. Have you owned before? Almost anyone coming to your house to fix anything is a minimum of $200-$250. Even if everything works now, let's say you need just one of a new roof or HVAC system 10 years from now for $5,000. You should be saving $500/year for that.
Anonymous
Car registration?

If your child is young enough to require $2600 in daycare why is there is separate line item for camp? Or is there more than one child?
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:Do you have HOA dues? Also I think home maintenance is too low. Have you owned before? Almost anyone coming to your house to fix anything is a minimum of $200-$250. Even if everything works now, let's say you need just one of a new roof or HVAC system 10 years from now for $5,000. You should be saving $500/year for that.


OP here. I actually do have an HOA, but I lumped it in with the mortgage. Mortgage is actually 2100+200 HOA. I checked the history and over the last 12 years it’s gone up $44... so not bad.

We have owned before, and are moving from a 1920s townhouse. During our time here we replaced the boiler, part of the roof, and 1 million other things. I may be too optimistic about what the new build will require...

I definitely agree with what you’re saying about major improvements/repairs. The AC is brand new, but the furnace and roof are middle-aged. We should be putting money aside for that.

What I’ve taken away from this thread so far is that I need a house repair fund, not just the maintenance fund. And maybe a small “life happens” fund. I’ve noticed we do best with our budget when we budget down pretty much to the dollar, so we don’t “see” extra money floating around — better to have it in a dedicated account for XYZ. So Maybe if we have a small fund for that every month and keep an eye on where it goes, eventually I can move those items out to an actual category.

Car registration is one that I missed! I’ll just bump car maintenance up a tiny bit to cover that. The daycare plus camp is a good catch, but the story behind it doesn’t really have anything to do this forum – suffice it to say that the $2600 is fixed, whereas the $150 is more flexible.

Thanks, everyone. Really value the input I’ve gotten here. Thanks for the YNAB suggestion too, definitely checking it out.
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