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

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[quote=Anonymous]FWIW, I've been doing the same exercise as we are expecting our first baby and I'm trying to decide if I could/should/would quit my job, or just go back 2 days a week.

These are averages over the last 3 months. We've tried not to be extravagant, but we aren't frugal.

Home: 
mortgage/condo dues/insurance/taxes on dc condo and rental property out of state
$2500

Food: 
grocery and eating out
$1000
(I know we could cut way back here)

Phones & cable
$400

Student loans
$2150
(Yep, 2 PhDs and trying to aggressively pay down, might benefit from new consolidation plan)

Travel
$400
(Annual trip abroad to see family and 1-2 trips to US cities for family. No "vacation" in years.)

Car
$400
Parking and the average of upkeep costs. Last month $500 for brakes :(

Health & fitness
$400
gym membership, prescription and otc meds, etc.

Shopping
$300
(This is in the last 3 months, so has included mostly buying in prep. for baby.)

Financial
$30

Entertainment
$100

Personal Care (Haircuts, manicures)
$100

Pets
$50

Gifts
$20

Business expenses
$100

Cash
$400

(Health insurance and retirement come directly from DH's salary, so those are taken care of.)

Total NOT bare-bones: $8350--eek!

My hope is to cut this down to about $6000, but I don't see how it could go much lower than that.

We bring in about $13000 now, but if I stop working, that'll go down to $8,000. But with no family in town to help with baby and a very small new network of friends, I'm not sure if it's worth finding and paying a nanny and being so tired that I imagine I'd hardly have time to focus on cutting back on our spending...

Before I started tracking and categorizing our spending on Mint.com, I thought our spending was about $6000, but once you start tracking the car breaking down,  having to go see sick family, getting emails from needy family members abroad asking you to send a box of vitamins.... life is expensive. 
[/quote]

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