How much money do you need monthly to maintain your life-style?

[Anonymous]

3k.

[Anonymous]

Our credit card bill, which I put *everything* on, is about $4K a month. Without kids around I'd probably spend less on that than I do (for obvious reasons), so maybe $3K.

Pretty modest really in the end.

[Anonymous]

~1k

[Anonymous]

Seems an odd sample of expenses - no one has mentioned car payments or school loans? What about retirement savings? Even if I had no mortgage or childcare/school expenses, I'd still want to save for retirement. Insurance? Purchases for the house, like furniture or or home projects? Charity donations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems an odd sample of expenses - no one has mentioned car payments or school loans? What about retirement savings? Even if I had no mortgage or childcare/school expenses, I'd still want to save for retirement. Insurance? Purchases for the house, like furniture or or home projects? Charity donations?

I'm 48. I no longer have school loans, and i buy my cars for cash. I do save for retirement, have insurance and make charitable donations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure everyone is counting the same things. Just a few of my monthly expenses:

$800 - health insurance premium (self insured)
$500- contribution to HSA plan (some double counting with the next one except we use this as a savings vehicle so don't use it to pay health expenses)
$600 - out of pocket health care due to high deductible plan, although again some of this is kid related
$800 - weekly house cleaning plus tax obligation on that
$200 - lawn care (March-November)
$800 - groceries/wine (although that does include food for kids, so maybe a little less)
$400 - eating out (one or two decent meals, a few quick take outs)
$1200 - average monthly cost for vacations and travel not counting kids portion (ski trips, weekend trips, travel to summer house)

So that's over $5000 without clothes, car insurance, gas, car repairs, utilities, cell phone, gifts, contributions to church and charity, savings, etc. I get that much of this is at the high end but health care alone is nearly $2k.

YOu spend $800 on weekly cleaning? Either that's a typo or you are nuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure everyone is counting the same things. Just a few of my monthly expenses:

$800 - health insurance premium (self insured)
$500- contribution to HSA plan (some double counting with the next one except we use this as a savings vehicle so don't use it to pay health expenses)
$600 - out of pocket health care due to high deductible plan, although again some of this is kid related
$800 - weekly house cleaning plus tax obligation on that
$200 - lawn care (March-November)
$800 - groceries/wine (although that does include food for kids, so maybe a little less)
$400 - eating out (one or two decent meals, a few quick take outs)
$1200 - average monthly cost for vacations and travel not counting kids portion (ski trips, weekend trips, travel to summer house)

So that's over $5000 without clothes, car insurance, gas, car repairs, utilities, cell phone, gifts, contributions to church and charity, savings, etc. I get that much of this is at the high end but health care alone is nearly $2k.

YOu spend $800 on weekly cleaning? Either that's a typo or you are nuts.

Yes, it ends up averaging about $800/month or $200/week. We pay both sides of SS and Medicare taxes plus unemployment, vacation (so we are paying for 52 weeks) and a year end gift. Now if I didn't have kids we might be able to get by with 2x per month so theoretically that could be cut in half.

[Anonymous]

6K

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure everyone is counting the same things. Just a few of my monthly expenses:

$800 - health insurance premium (self insured)
$500- contribution to HSA plan (some double counting with the next one except we use this as a savings vehicle so don't use it to pay health expenses)
$600 - out of pocket health care due to high deductible plan, although again some of this is kid related
$800 - weekly house cleaning plus tax obligation on that
$200 - lawn care (March-November)
$800 - groceries/wine (although that does include food for kids, so maybe a little less)
$400 - eating out (one or two decent meals, a few quick take outs)
$1200 - average monthly cost for vacations and travel not counting kids portion (ski trips, weekend trips, travel to summer house)

So that's over $5000 without clothes, car insurance, gas, car repairs, utilities, cell phone, gifts, contributions to church and charity, savings, etc. I get that much of this is at the high end but health care alone is nearly $2k.

YOu spend $800 on weekly cleaning? Either that's a typo or you are nuts.

I pay my housekeeper $80 week in CASH
Yes, it ends up averaging about $800/month or $200/week. We pay both sides of SS and Medicare taxes plus unemployment, vacation (so we are paying for 52 weeks) and a year end gift. Now if I didn't have kids we might be able to get by with 2x per month so theoretically that could be cut in half.

[Anonymous]

For our family of four, not counting childcare or mortgage, but still counting vacation saving, child activities, retirement and college savings about $4000K. Without vacation etc, about $2000K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For our family of four, not counting childcare or mortgage, but still counting vacation saving, child activities, retirement and college savings about $4000K. Without vacation etc, about $2000K.

$4000K ! Holy crap you must be rich!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure everyone is counting the same things. Just a few of my monthly expenses:

$800 - health insurance premium (self insured)
$500- contribution to HSA plan (some double counting with the next one except we use this as a savings vehicle so don't use it to pay health expenses)
$600 - out of pocket health care due to high deductible plan, although again some of this is kid related
$800 - weekly house cleaning plus tax obligation on that
$200 - lawn care (March-November)
$800 - groceries/wine (although that does include food for kids, so maybe a little less)
$400 - eating out (one or two decent meals, a few quick take outs)
$1200 - average monthly cost for vacations and travel not counting kids portion (ski trips, weekend trips, travel to summer house)

So that's over $5000 without clothes, car insurance, gas, car repairs, utilities, cell phone, gifts, contributions to church and charity, savings, etc. I get that much of this is at the high end but health care alone is nearly $2k.

YOu spend $800 on weekly cleaning? Either that's a typo or you are nuts.

I pay my housekeeper $80 week in CASH
Yes, it ends up averaging about $800/month or $200/week. We pay both sides of SS and Medicare taxes plus unemployment, vacation (so we are paying for 52 weeks) and a year end gift. Now if I didn't have kids we might be able to get by with 2x per month so theoretically that could be cut in half.

That's great for you. We have a big house, our person has worked for us for 25 years, and does a lot of extras (including laundry). I work FT so am happy to outsource this aspect of home care. Because of job circumstances we can't pay under the table so we pay all the taxes, which adds about 15-18% to the weekly amount. I have looked into a cleaning service (which then would include the taxes) and it would be about the same price and they wouldn't do as much so we stick with what's working.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems an odd sample of expenses - no one has mentioned car payments or school loans? What about retirement savings? Even if I had no mortgage or childcare/school expenses, I'd still want to save for retirement. Insurance? Purchases for the house, like furniture or or home projects? Charity donations?

OP here: I did intend to include car payments because although there would be variation it would likely be within reasonable limits. I did not intend to include school loans, retirement savings, other savings, furniture, home projects, etc because there would likely be a lot of variation depending on income, age, how much was borrowed for college, etc. But your point is well made that there are more expenses than merely what some have been outlining.

My purpose in starting the topic was two-fold: it pretty much describes our own situation ie no mortgage payments or children's expenses - and we are surprised how little we do spend and yet maintain a decent lifestyle. The other reason is because I see these astronomical amounts that people seem to have saved or are aiming to save and I wonder what the intention is in saving so much money when for most people and the lifestyle they enjoy, it is just not needed.