Help Cutting Expenses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$1500 - food/gas/misc. household expenses
$200 - personal expenses (hair cuts, clothes, etc.)

This is why you have no money.

$1500 is not a lot to spend on the combination of food, gas, AND household items. In any case, OP is about to owe another $1,800, so starving her family to death won't solve the shortfall anyhow.

She only needs to cut it by $900.

That is what I thought at first, since the budget included half the student loan payment. But she said she needed to add "another" $1,800, so its kind of ambiguous.

OP, now that I know you're in a condo, those utility bills do seem really high to me. I assumed you were in a house in a development when I read that. Is it mostly HOA fees?

[Anonymous]

Make do with the clothes you and your DH have; buy kid clothes at consignment shops. I would temporarly scale back on your 401k contributions, at least the amount over any match you're getting, until you get a better handle on your finances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$1500 - food/gas/misc. household expenses
$200 - personal expenses (hair cuts, clothes, etc.)

This is why you have no money.

$1500 is not a lot to spend on the combination of food, gas, AND household items. In any case, OP is about to owe another $1,800, so starving her family to death won't solve the shortfall anyhow.

She only needs to cut it by $900.

That is what I thought at first, since the budget included half the student loan payment. But she said she needed to add "another" $1,800, so its kind of ambiguous.

OP, now that I know you're in a condo, those utility bills do seem really high to me. I assumed you were in a house in a development when I read that. Is it mostly HOA fees?

OP here. Sorry for being confusing; we need to "find" another $900 a month. The utilities vary some - sometimes $400 but sometimes $600. Our HOA fee ($450 a month) covers water and trash, but satellite, cell phones, land line (needed for work but not covered by work), gas, power, etc. are our expenses. FWIW, it is a condo that is a townhouse. We have two floors and another couple has two floors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$1500 - food/gas/misc. household expenses
$200 - personal expenses (hair cuts, clothes, etc.)

This is why you have no money.

$1500 is not a lot to spend on the combination of food, gas, AND household items. In any case, OP is about to owe another $1,800, so starving her family to death won't solve the shortfall anyhow.

She doesn't say how many people in her family, but for comparison, for my family of 2 adults and a 4 year old child, we have a weekly grocery store budget of $150. We don't go over, and we tend to spend an extra $100/month on dinner or brunch out. That's $700 in food. I have Amazon Prime delivering things like laundry detergent and dishwasher pellets and paper products. That costs about $100/month overall (some things are on a 3 month cycle, some aren't).

Food: $700
Household supplies: $100
Gas: $50

OP's budget for those things would give me an extra $650 a month to put toward other things.

How do you feed your family of 4 for only $150/week. Tell me!

$50 a MONTH on gas? Not unless you and your spouse are driving mopeds.

I spend around $150/wk for food for my family of 4. But I supplement with a trip to Costco every 5 weeks (11 X per year) and spend roughly 300. So that puts me at about $210/wk (compared to PP's $170 for same items) for food/household goods/cleaning products/pet products - we could pare out 40 bucks if we had to.

I guess you drive more than we do! We have one car and I take the bus to work/DD's school. DH drives to work twice a week but otherwise takes metro. OP didn't say what their car dependence was. My work gives a transit subsidy, so that costs me nothing.

I would kill myself before taking a bus. Low class.

[Anonymous]

OP, given what your HOA covers, your utility costs still sound high. Are your stove/dryer/hot waterheater/heating system on gas or electric? Electric on those appliances can get crazy expensive.. Compete out the parts of your electrical bill to a competitor that you can. Turn down your hot water heater. If your dryer is electric, start air drying as much as you can. No heated dry on the dishwasher. These are easy things to do that will not drastically change your life but give you an extra $50 or so per month.

Look at the gas mileage on your cars. Get rid of the gas chuggers and suck it up in a used Corolla.

Completely agree about DH getting an evening/weekend job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$1500 - food/gas/misc. household expenses
$200 - personal expenses (hair cuts, clothes, etc.)

This is why you have no money.

$1500 is not a lot to spend on the combination of food, gas, AND household items. In any case, OP is about to owe another $1,800, so starving her family to death won't solve the shortfall anyhow.

She doesn't say how many people in her family, but for comparison, for my family of 2 adults and a 4 year old child, we have a weekly grocery store budget of $150. We don't go over, and we tend to spend an extra $100/month on dinner or brunch out. That's $700 in food. I have Amazon Prime delivering things like laundry detergent and dishwasher pellets and paper products. That costs about $100/month overall (some things are on a 3 month cycle, some aren't).

Food: $700
Household supplies: $100
Gas: $50

OP's budget for those things would give me an extra $650 a month to put toward other things.

How do you feed your family of 4 for only $150/week. Tell me!

Haha! We feed my family of 4 on less than $100/ week (includes take out or eating out 1x/wk & diapers!!). Yes, organic milk & veggies, free range eggs and all natural meats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$1500 - food/gas/misc. household expenses
$200 - personal expenses (hair cuts, clothes, etc.)

This is why you have no money.

$1500 is not a lot to spend on the combination of food, gas, AND household items. In any case, OP is about to owe another $1,800, so starving her family to death won't solve the shortfall anyhow.

She doesn't say how many people in her family, but for comparison, for my family of 2 adults and a 4 year old child, we have a weekly grocery store budget of $150. We don't go over, and we tend to spend an extra $100/month on dinner or brunch out. That's $700 in food. I have Amazon Prime delivering things like laundry detergent and dishwasher pellets and paper products. That costs about $100/month overall (some things are on a 3 month cycle, some aren't).

Food: $700
Household supplies: $100
Gas: $50

OP's budget for those things would give me an extra $650 a month to put toward other things.

How do you feed your family of 4 for only $150/week. Tell me!

Haha! We feed my family of 4 on less than $100/ week (includes take out or eating out 1x/wk & diapers!!). Yes, organic milk & veggies, free range eggs and all natural meats.

Do you live in the DC area? Where do you shop? That's awesome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She needs to downsize her home. $2500 mortgage? There was nothing left.

That's pretty good if she lives in the dc area. She needs two bedrooms and it would be tough to get a two bedroom for less than that without spending a tons on gas.

[Anonymous]

What do you mean by satellite? Is that cable tv? Cut it off. You don't need cable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$1500 - food/gas/misc. household expenses
$200 - personal expenses (hair cuts, clothes, etc.)

This is why you have no money.

$1500 is not a lot to spend on the combination of food, gas, AND household items. In any case, OP is about to owe another $1,800, so starving her family to death won't solve the shortfall anyhow.

Starving to death ? Please, drama queen. The bitch spends too much money on foolishness. A little poverty and starvation might help her change her ways.

Putting the unnecessary meanness aside, don't other people have non-"foolish" incidentals that add up? For example, our dog got really ill and we had to pay a boatload at the vet. The toilet broke and we had to replace it. We had to take a flight to see a very sick relative. We buy small birthday presents for people. In my mind, that all constitutes "misc. household expenses" that are necessary and that cannot be changed. Do the people with $800 budgets just skip that stuff?

Exactly, last month we spent 600 on a furnace repair.
This month 1100 on a car repair.

[Anonymous]

OP, how much do you save in your 401?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Putting the unnecessary meanness aside, don't other people have non-"foolish" incidentals that add up? For example, our dog got really ill and we had to pay a boatload at the vet. The toilet broke and we had to replace it. We had to take a flight to see a very sick relative. We buy small birthday presents for people. In my mind, that all constitutes "misc. household expenses" that are necessary and that cannot be changed. Do the people with $800 budgets just skip that stuff?

Exactly, last month we spent 600 on a furnace repair.
This month 1100 on a car repair.

This is why it's sensible to have an emergency fund. We saved for a year to end up with a 10K fund that sits, waiting for these type of "murphy" visits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$1500 - food/gas/misc. household expenses
$200 - personal expenses (hair cuts, clothes, etc.)

This is why you have no money.

$1500 is not a lot to spend on the combination of food, gas, AND household items. In any case, OP is about to owe another $1,800, so starving her family to death won't solve the shortfall anyhow.

She doesn't say how many people in her family, but for comparison, for my family of 2 adults and a 4 year old child, we have a weekly grocery store budget of $150. We don't go over, and we tend to spend an extra $100/month on dinner or brunch out. That's $700 in food. I have Amazon Prime delivering things like laundry detergent and dishwasher pellets and paper products. That costs about $100/month overall (some things are on a 3 month cycle, some aren't).

Food: $700
Household supplies: $100
Gas: $50

OP's budget for those things would give me an extra $650 a month to put toward other things.

How do you feed your family of 4 for only $150/week. Tell me!

Haha! We feed my family of 4 on less than $100/ week (includes take out or eating out 1x/wk & diapers!!). Yes, organic milk & veggies, free range eggs and all natural meats.

Do you live in the DC area? Where do you shop? That's awesome.

We live in MoCo and shop mostly at Harris Teeter.