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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]According to our monthly budget (family of 3, no debt other than mortgage), we aim to spend $4,250 a month or less. [b]This includes everything but mortgage, daycare, and health insurance [/b]deducted from DH's paycheck. I think some months we hit our target, some months we do better, and some months we fall short (because of unforeseen house expenses, vet bills, car expenses, etc.). If I added in all the unplanned crap, I imagine we would be in the $5,000 range too. If we had to cut back, we could, [b]but we are by no means "spendy" people[/b]. We eat out too much, though. 
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And this is the other extreme.  So other than what are likely your three largest monthly expenses, you spend $5000/month?  Hate to break this to you, but you are indeed spendy people.  [/quote]

Hmm, well don't think of ourselves as "spendy," but of course it's all relative. Our mortgage payment (with prop taxes, ect.) is $2,100 and we do a pretty inexpensive in-home daycare for DS. We have 2 paid-off older cars, which we purchased used. We have no debt. We don't use a cleaning lady. Our monthly budget was created to be an average and to include big- and little-ticket items. It covers: utilities (cable, internet, phone, gas, water, electric), life insurance, car insurance, gas, car maintenance, cash withdrawals (for spending money), sports leagues for me and DH, a bi-weekly baby sitter (splurge!), clothing, pet food and care for 1 dog, groceries and whatnot, eating out, clothes (and drycleaning--freakin' suits!), stuff for baby, presents for various people who insist on doing things like getting married and having babies, contact lenses, doctor bills and meds (not covered by ins.), christmas presents, birthday presents, trips to see relatives, household goods, furniture, cash to mom every now and again, and other stuff I'm forgetting. Our budget is intended to be all-inclusive, but if there's something very expensive that comes up (e.g., we just got a new roof), I would say we go over. And some months we don't spend as much, but that's not what OP was asking--she wants the whole ball of wax. I think people who are gasping at this number might be underestimating their overall expenses, but I could be wrong.

And FWIW, we also save a lot. So if our spending seems high, then oh well.

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