Is this a reasonable amount of spending money per month based on our income?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HHI is 320k. No debt except mortgage on a townhouse. Both our paychecks go into the same joint account.

I proposed to my wife that we each get $1200/month of personal spending money to go into our own bank accounts that we can spend judgement free. I think she’s okay with it but also wishes she could have more per month to blow on stuff. Is this too low? We have no kids yet but will start trying in the next year and are also aggressively saving for a down payment on another house.

This isn’t money for needs like bills, food, gym, or for shared wants like vacations, activities, or new stuff for the house. It doesn’t include gifts either, that would come from our joint account. It’s basically just an amount that we can individually spend on ourselves without needing to justify it to the other person.

These two bolded statements of yours, OP, do not match up or even make sense.
This is your time to save, save, save since you do seem to want to purchase a SFH. Once you add a child into the mix, you will have wished you saved more. I guarantee you.

Aggressively save can either be in terms of absolute numbers or as a percentage of income. If you save >50% of your after tax income I would call that fairly aggressive compared to the average American. Whatever you do with the other 40-50% has no impact on the fact you are saving over half your money. Saving 10k a month is more than what most people around OP’s age are doing. Even 5k is very above average. The typical 27-30 year old is broke.

[Anonymous]

You are smoking weed or you have no financial goals. Do you want to build an estate or just blow 30K on fun? C'mon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HHI is 320k. No debt except mortgage on a townhouse. Both our paychecks go into the same joint account.

I proposed to my wife that we each get $1200/month of personal spending money to go into our own bank accounts that we can spend judgement free. I think she’s okay with it but also wishes she could have more per month to blow on stuff. Is this too low? We have no kids yet but will start trying in the next year and are also aggressively saving for a down payment on another house.

This isn’t money for needs like bills, food, gym, or for shared wants like vacations, activities, or new stuff for the house. It doesn’t include gifts either, that would come from our joint account. It’s basically just an amount that we can individually spend on ourselves without needing to justify it to the other person.

These two bolded statements of yours, OP, do not match up or even make sense.
This is your time to save, save, save since you do seem to want to purchase a SFH. Once you add a child into the mix, you will have wished you saved more. I guarantee you.

This !!!!

Once you have to save $250K+ for each kid for college (min for instate) and pay 2-3K/kid monthly for daycare (and still plenty for before/after care until MS) you will wish you had started earlier

Why do you think someone who currently has 350K saved in cash for their next house can't figure out how to save 250K for their children, who aren't even going to college until 20 years later, because they're not born yet?

Why do you think that someone who's currently saving 10K a month won't be able to afford 2-3k in childcare?

Do you really think this couple, who's probably in their early 30's, can't make more money than 300K down the line? And even if they don't, they're going to have amnesia from spending $1200 a month that they forgot how they managed to saved enough for a townhouse and 350K in cash?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HHI is 320k. No debt except mortgage on a townhouse. Both our paychecks go into the same joint account.

I proposed to my wife that we each get $1200/month of personal spending money to go into our own bank accounts that we can spend judgement free. I think she’s okay with it but also wishes she could have more per month to blow on stuff. Is this too low? We have no kids yet but will start trying in the next year and are also aggressively saving for a down payment on another house.

This isn’t money for needs like bills, food, gym, or for shared wants like vacations, activities, or new stuff for the house. It doesn’t include gifts either, that would come from our joint account. It’s basically just an amount that we can individually spend on ourselves without needing to justify it to the other person.

These two bolded statements of yours, OP, do not match up or even make sense.
This is your time to save, save, save since you do seem to want to purchase a SFH. Once you add a child into the mix, you will have wished you saved more. I guarantee you.

It doesn't make sense to say that you're aggressively saving for an SFH when more than half of your take home income is dedicated to savings? Have you even ever done that your entire life?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here this is our current monthly budget

$2200 PITI
$575 groceries & consumables
$500 car & house maintenance
$300 subscriptions (incl gym membership)
$350 utilities
$450 transportation cost (mostly insurance & VA car tax)
$1000 vacation saving
$2400 personal spending

Total is $7775. Our take home is over $17k so it leaves us with almost 10k going into savings every month (more like 11-12k if you count pre tax 401k contributions and match + paying down mortgage principal).

Are we really going wrong here? Seems crazy how you could make double or more our income and barely enjoy any of it for yourself.

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.

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).

If you cut back in half, you would be saving an extra $1200/month. That's $14k per year. Keep investing that amount every year for 30 years. At a conservative 8% return, you would have an extra $1.9M in retirement.
Are you going to poopoo over $1.9M when you are 60?
Believe me, you are going to say "thank god we saved that extra $1200 every month".

Sure but you need to include what the OP would have if they saved “only” 10k a month for 30 years, which in your scenario is $13.5M. Now the difference at age 60 between $13.5M and $15.4M is not a lot.

The value in becoming rich is diminished if you have to wait until you’re a senior citizen to enjoy it. Once you hit a certain level of financial security and get “on track” to continue making a high income it’s silly to prioritize hoarding as much money as possible until you’re old when you can finally spend it.

What most are missing here with this focus on compound interest and wealth generation at all costs is the fact that your time left on this planet with a healthy and youthful body and the experiences you accumulate, in the end, is more important than how much money you end up with. It’s also silly to try to amass a huge pile to leave to your kids because chances are they won’t be grateful and will end up squandering it.

it is a LOT. It can allow you to retire 5-10 years earlier if desired.

How did you do the math here? The difference between 13.5M and 15.4M is one year of a good stock market and 2 years of an average one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

THis 1000%. Save early and let compounding work for you. Save enough so that you can control your own life by 50. Don't want to have to work a job you hate in your 50s or 60s

Also, I'd much rather have that $1200/month spending money when I'm older---I "need" a monthly massage now much more than in my 30s.

Go to physical therapy

[Anonymous]

You again? You are exhausting.

[Anonymous]

The amount is fine. I personally wouldn’t like to be put on a budget I know many couples disagree and fight about money. DH thankfully doesn’t check my spending.

[Anonymous]

Another thing you're not thinking about is how this is essentially your last hurrah before you have kids. You listed like 5 to 6 hobbies and once you have kids, say goodbye to those (at least for the first few years of their existence).

All these posters who are shaming you for wanting to enjoy yourself are saying that the kids will take over your finances. They will also take over your time. I don't think you will regret having fun in the last 1 to 2 years before being chained to another human being.