Is this a reasonable amount of spending money per month based on our income?
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Anonymous
You are proposing that your fun money is your highest budget amount. |
Anonymous
| Do you have an emergency fund and money for new cars and furniture for your new house? If so go for it. It will all change one you have kids. |
Anonymous
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Here is what a full budget looks like. You’re missing a lot of stuff in yours making you think you have more to blow. This is for two adults and a teenager at $200k gross HHI with two working parents and a paid off mortgage .
$1,200 food $940 prop tax & HOA $310 insurance (life, auto, prop, umbrella) $170 gas/parking $420 utilities (phone, internet, water, electric, gas) $560 medical out-of-pocket $770 home repairs and sinking fund for large expenses $170 auto repairs and sinking fund for large expenses $200 clothing $120 entertainment $100 gifts $250 household supplies, pet care for lizard $500 charity $1,370 “fun” extracurricular activities, vacations, fun money for individuals, teen's allowance $420 college savings $1,000 Roth savings ------------------ $8,500 spending from take-home pay |
Anonymous
| Way too much. |
Anonymous
Yes you are really going wrong here. Start saving more to get to a good school district and realize that when you have a kid, it’s going to cost you $3k a month for daycare. Cut back now. |
Anonymous
| So this $1200 per month covers her makeup, hair, nails and clothes? Too much. |
Anonymous
The thing is if we cut back to 600/person vs 1200/person it’s only going to be a difference of ~11k vs 10k/month in savings, I don’t feel like this is going to make a major impact a long time from now. We aren’t going to think when we’re 60 “thank god we saved that extra $1200”. My philosophy with money is take a balanced approach and spend to enjoy life now but also be responsible and save plenty for the future, I feel we’re doing that. I think people here are biased towards one extreme based on the responses. IMO it’s crazy to make 30-50k a month after taxes and think you can’t spent a little over 1k on yourself. What’s the point of working and making so much if you can’t have some nice things? Of course, we are planning to reevaluate once we have kids and budget needs change. We won’t have as much time for ourselves anyway so hobbies are going to be reduced. We already have a good chunk saved for the new house as well as retirement savings. Current NW is 1M in late 20’s/early 30’s so we’ve been saving (mostly coming from me). |
Anonymous
| Our hhi is over 1 million and I can't fathom what I would spend $1200 a month on just for myself. That seems really high. |
Anonymous
We are DINKs so what do I know - but it sounds pretty reasonable to me. Being less spendy works for a lot of people - I wish I were one of them; I'd certainly be better off financially! - but some people are willing to make the tradeoff that you and your spouse seem comfortable making. Less in savings - though still saving a lot - because you want to enjoy yourselves now. I think the most important thing is that you and your spouse are on the same page. If not, then look for the lowest hanging fruit that you can cut and try to get to $1k/month, see how that feels. If you want to save more, then see if you can get down to $800/month. Or whatever. |
Anonymous
Adult hobbies can be very expensive if you let them. If you have a few of them, $1200 can go by fast. A lot of the expenses are just the costs to get started and buy all the gear/equipment so it won’t necessarily be that much forever. Collecting hobbies are the worst. I know several people with tens of thousands or 6 figures in whatever collection they have. |
Anonymous
| Is this a joke? What in the world could EACH of you spend 1200 per month on? I strongly suggest you save as much money as you can for the future while you are young. Careers and life are uncertain. A friend of mine who is in her 50s works for a company that was purchased by another company and was being pushed aside and treated poorly. She just woke up one day and decided to quit and told me that she was thankful she saved aggressively in her 20s, 30s, and 40s because it her gave her the flexibility to do something else or nothing at all. |
Anonymous
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Mani pedi once a month at Eclips : $170+40 =210
Haircut, blow dry, touch-up or highlights: probably $400 Facial? $200 or more It adds up. |
Anonymous
| That’s an insane amount of money to blow at your income. Invest as much as you can before you have kids instead of frittering away your cash. You’ll be glad for the financial freedom later. |
Anonymous
I think this makes sense to me. You're not going to notice saving 1.2k more per month when you already save 10k, but you're going to notice only spending 600/months instead of 1200/month. Even after a year, you're only saving like 15k more. That's not going to make or break whatever house you want to buy. I'm not seeing a single reply here making any sort of argument that your proposed level of spending would deter you from your goals. It's just "blah blah kids expensive" without actually running the numbers. |
Anonymous
If you can't even spend 1.5% of your HHI on yourself, you have a mental problem: either you're a hoarder, you don't know how to do math, or you pretend that your gym membership is "for the family." |