Critique my budget, please. Need to increase retirement savings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you should do the reverse of what you are trying to do. Bump up your retirement savings a bit more - something you feel puts you on better footing. Then, you will be forced to adjust your spending, and it will become a lot more obvious to you what you can go without. If retirement savings is your priority, spend money there first.

I agree with this. Maximize your 401k contribution and the rest will work itself out.

+1. OP our HHI is identical, but our take home is $6800 a month and we cut out a lot of extras and make it work. No cleaners, no gym, and eat at home most of the time. If you increase your retirement savings and have less take home, you will find a way to make it work. You could so a little more each month until you get to 15% to soften the blow.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Great idea, thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No it means groceries for lunches. Meaning that's why it's ONLY $1k.
seriously how do you guys do groceries for less than $1k. Shop at walmart? not drink $5 bottles of wine?

Husband works at an office. I am a SAHM. We mostly shop at Harris Teeter, Trader Joe's, and Costco. Our monthly food bill is about $600 and that is for a family of 5. I am a vegetarian as is one child. Husband and two kids are not.

-Meat comes from Trader Joe's - generally ground beef and chicken breasts eaten 2-3 times per week for dinner.
-I generally use HT's deli counter for Boar's Head turkey breast and swiss cheese.
-I buy fruit based on what's on sale, generally plus we always have lots of apples and bananas on hand. I always buy whole and cut up myself, so I cut up the cantaloupes, watermelon, etc. I don't buy the prepackaged.
-Veggies are mostly from TJ's too and we use a lot of their frozen veggies - broccoli, spinach, corn, etc.
-For HT, I use the sale circular to see what I will pick up each week. They can be pricey but they have great sales. I buy Arnold bread for sandwiches when they are buy one get one free, for example. I usually buy cereal there when it's on sale and with a coupon or from TJs. I bought about 12 jars of peanut butter at the beginning of the school year when they had a great sale, but I don't generally stock up large quantities like that.
-We have a standard list of things we get from Costco like string cheese, yogurt tubes, chicken nuggets, butter and most baking items

For meals:
Breakfast:
-Weedays, we generally eat cereal and milk, sometimes homemade muffins
-Weekends we might do omelettes, pancakes, or bagels

Lunch:
-Kids bring it to school everyday, generally sandwiches such as deli or pb&J, yogurt, egg salad, leftovers from dinner. I usually eat leftovers. Husband eats leftovers, tuna, or sandwich plus he eats at work twice a week compliments of his office.

At least 5 dinners per week are homecooked but nothing fancy. Here is an example:
- bbq chicken
-spaghetti and meatballs
-vegetarian chili over rice
-tortillas with veggies, beans, sometimes chicken or beef
-homemade soups such as minestrone, french onion, meatball pasta, broccoli cheese
-meatloaf
-meatball sandwiches
-pasta and veggies and parmesan
-homemade pizza or strombolis
-spinach quiche and salad
-breakfast for dinner such as homemade waffles, pancakes, or omelettes (only about once every two weeks)
-grill out hamburgers, nitrate-free hotdogs
-salmon

Of the remaining two dinners one is usually quick food like chicken nuggets for the kids or homemade mac and cheese.
The other night we go out or take in something like Baja Fresh, pizza or Chinese. Usually not more than $30 for all of us.

I buy toilet paper when it's on sale and with coupon, tissues from TJ's, try not to buy paper towels at all and use washclothes instead, napkins maybe once every 2 months or so. I mostly clean with vinegar and orange rinds. Shampoo is what's on sale or cheap. Dishwashing detergent is probably $2 per month and laundry detergent maybe $5 per month?

I don't drink alcohol and my husband drinks maybe a six-pack of beer once every week or two or some cheap TJ's wine.

I call bullshit. All of these items, on sale from the stores you list here, cost more than $500. Unless you make your husband only eat half a chicken breast? You people are pathetic. On a $150k household income you would cut out alcohol?

The food listed above does not cost more than $600. As I mentioned only 3 people eat meat and two are young children. I buy a bag of frozen chicken breasts from TJ's that cost about $8 for 2.5 pounds. If I cook half the package for dinner there will be left over. I know because I did tonight. They eat chicken breast as the main meal maybe once per week. Tonight we had barbecue chicken with broccoli, homemade mashed potatoes, and applesauce. How much do you think that meal cost total? $4 for the chicken, $2 for a bag of frozen TJ broccoli, and probably $2 worth of potatoes, milk, and butter for the mashed potatoes. Half jar of applesauce is about $1 as is half jar of bbq sauce. My vegetarian daughter and I also had salads that was probably $1 each. So our whole meal for dinner was $12. Our meatless meals which we eat 3-4 days per week are much cheaper.

I am not the OP. We do not make $150K. But money is not the reason why I don't drink alcohol anyway. I just don't care for it. As I mentioned, my husband does drink beer and wine once in a while.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you should do the reverse of what you are trying to do. Bump up your retirement savings a bit more - something you feel puts you on better footing. Then, you will be forced to adjust your spending, and it will become a lot more obvious to you what you can go without. If retirement savings is your priority, spend money there first.

I agree with this. Maximize your 401k contribution and the rest will work itself out.

+1. OP our HHI is identical, but our take home is $6800 a month and we cut out a lot of extras and make it work. No cleaners, no gym, and eat at home most of the time. If you increase your retirement savings and have less take home, you will find a way to make it work. You could so a little more each month until you get to 15% to soften the blow.

I agree with this. The best way to cut on this situation is to just do it. Put more in retirement and lower your take home. You will find place to cut when you have to live on less. Otherwise you will always have an excuse not to cut here or there. It sucks a big at first but you adjust. We now max out everything (higher HHI but or outrageously higher) and it seemed so daunting at first. But I don't even notice the missing $$ any more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you should do the reverse of what you are trying to do. Bump up your retirement savings a bit more - something you feel puts you on better footing. Then, you will be forced to adjust your spending, and it will become a lot more obvious to you what you can go without. If retirement savings is your priority, spend money there first.

I agree with this. Maximize your 401k contribution and the rest will work itself out.

+1. OP our HHI is identical, but our take home is $6800 a month and we cut out a lot of extras and make it work. No cleaners, no gym, and eat at home most of the time. If you increase your retirement savings and have less take home, you will find a way to make it work. You could so a little more each month until you get to 15% to soften the blow.

I agree with this. The best way to cut on this situation is to just do it. Put more in retirement and lower your take home. You will find place to cut when you have to live on less. Otherwise you will always have an excuse not to cut here or there. It sucks a big at first but you adjust. We now max out everything (higher HHI but or outrageously higher) and it seemed so daunting at first. But I don't even notice the missing $$ any more.

Another +1. You'll work within the parameters you set for yourself. If you're worried about, increase it be 1% each month until you're maxing your 401k conributions.

As an aside, how big is your house? Your mortgage isn't all that huge. Extending that, if you didn't put down a huge payment, your house likely isn't a mansion. I think $160 for biweekly cleaning is overpaying. You should be able to get that down to $100 (not knowing your specifics) for a regular single family home.

[Anonymous]

Immediate PP here. Nevermind. I realize now that you're spending $80 every two weeks, so $160 for the month.

I would sit in a dark room eating cereal before I give up my cleaners, so I'm not going to suggest you give that up.

[Anonymous]

Are you ordering diapers etc. in bulk?

You can cut the grocery bills by eating more legumes; making large batches of food like soups, chili, and bean salads; planning meals to avoid tossing produce etc. I don't drink much alcohol, but you can buy wine by the case from Trader Joe's or Costco.

You could buy a cheap elliptical machine or exercise bike and cut out the gym. I always found that I was using the same one or two machines any way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No it means groceries for lunches. Meaning that's why it's ONLY $1k.
seriously how do you guys do groceries for less than $1k. Shop at walmart? not drink $5 bottles of wine?

Generic when possible. Few convenience foods (nothing pre-shredded, chopped, etc.) Buy on sale. Typically no alcohol.... maybe a $10 bottle for a weekend (but we realized that added up, and we cut back). We do spend more on the household stuff, so that could be where your $$ is going because you mentioned you lumped it in here. We just use cheaper stuff if quality is ok (no luxury shampoos, I cut open lotion tubes to get everything out...). Nothing that alone makes a big dent in the budget but together stuff that extends the life of stuff and stretches out visits to Target.

Do you also tongue clean your plates after meals?

[Anonymous]

Get rid of the house cleaning. That is $320 a month! That is a lot of money. Get ride of the gym. Work out on your own.

[Anonymous]

Where do you live? We have found groceries vary greatly in price depending in neighborhood. 1k a month would make us happy, but we do buy organic mostly (Moms and TJ) but definitely see prices in further out suburbs are much cheaper. In Arlington I have not seen HT being much cheaper than TJ, and for organic or produce, HT more expensive than whole foods.

Buying frozen helps cost, but fresh veggies are so much nicer.