Reply to Shocked: Our bare-bones monthly cost of living is 5K after taxes! What's yours?

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[quote=Anonymous]OP here: Until DH and I went through the exercise of recording all of our expenditures, 3K of expenses per month after paying the mortgage would have seemed like a lot to me, too. We don't even have student loan debt or a car payment. We assumed we needed more like 2K monthly, outside of the mortgage. But it all adds up: the $500 out-of-pocket ER visit, the furnace "check-up" that turns into a $400 repair bill, insurance and maintenance for the car that we don't even drive that much, winter heating bills, etc. I don't want to lay out every single one of our expenses, but try the exercise yourself and you might be surprised.

I should also say that the 5K budget does include some things that aren't absolutely essential for survival, like baby and wedding gifts, coffee (but not lunch) at work, toys for our toddler, a newspaper subscription, $$ for family visits, getting together with friends every now and then, and birthday celebrations. But we keep those expenditures pretty modest and wouldn't want to give them up, should we decide to live on a single income.

To the PP getting by on only $2200/month. That's great. Can you tell us how you do it? [/quote]

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