Reply to Critique my budget, please

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "Critique my budget, please"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]$600 a month for food? There is no way I could feed us on that. :( [/quote]
they spent $300 on eating out, and their kids are small...

But yeah, I want to cry too, I'm lucky if I can keep it under $1000 for the 4 of as
and kids activity - $150 a month, another $1k for 2 kids here too. Maybe I overdoing it with sport ($150-200), music ($160) and language & art ($400) activities, not to mention countless birthday parties.

Anyway, 
OP, I think your numbers are low on food, kids activities and childcare as many pps pointed out.[/quote]

Thanks to you and others for pointing these out.  These categories are based on our actual spending history, but here is why I think they are a bit lower than average:

The grocery budget is lower than many would expect because DH and I have employers who feed us lunch  :)  It sounds great until you realize that you've been at your desk for 10 hours straight some days.  I'm also great at shopping the sales, buying in bulk, and stocking up in a chest freezer.  Investing in a chest freezer (originally for breastmilk) was the best thing that ever happened to my grocery bill.

I agree kids activities could go up, but DD has tried soccer, gymnastics, mandarin, and ballet in the last year.  Only ballet has stuck, and it's not very expensive for the 5yo age group.  I lump recital expenses into the "miscellaneous" category because it does tend to be lumpy and a bit frivolous at this point.

For childcare, we have an amazing setup with a close friend who is a SAHM, so it's not anywhere close to "market".  The kids are close friends and play well together too, so it works great.  We also have grandparents as backup, so we definitely got lucky in that department.  We'll be moving the 1yo to preschool in another year or so, and will have to re-look at expenses then.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics