Reply to what is a good income to be a SAHM in NOVA?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We lived in NoVa for 12 years with 3 kids until 3 years ago. I was a SAHM and we lived on $132K. Yes, we did buy before the market went crazy, but we had a 15-year mortgage, so our monthly mortgage wasn't that low- it was $2300, and we lived fine, saved for college, retirement, went on vacation, etc. We did not have student loans or prior debt, which obviously made a difference. With 3 kids and a mortgage, we had a lot of deductions, so our federal income tax was fairly low. Our monthly budget looked something like this:

Income: $11,000
federal taxes: $1200
state taxes: $500
401K: $1450
health ins: $500
dental ins: $150
FLEX: $50
mortgage (piti): $2300
food:$600
utilities: $300
internet/tv/phone: $120
gasoline: $300
travel: $250
car insurance:$125
activities: $250
eating out/ent: $200
clothes: $100
gifts: $100
house maint: $100
auto maint: $100
IRA: $900
College: $500
Misc: 900

That's not exact, but our approx. budget. We did have a large savings net from when I was working but we didn't dig into it. We lived fairly simply, I suppose (and still do).

I'm not into name brand clothes, and I didn't need nice clothing for work. My husband was the branch manger of a company, so he decided the dress code which was casual because they rarely saw clients. We bought our kids' clothes at consignment sales for the most part. They mostly did activities through Parks and Rec. which were fairly cheap. I cooked from scratch almost everyday. Our vacation was a week at the beach in June when rates are cheaper and visiting family in Florida (we drove) over Christmas.

I had already loaded up on 401k retirement savings before I stopped working, and my husband continued to max out his. For college, while our savings rate was low for this, our mortgage was going to be done 3 years before the oldest went away to college, so we planned to pay it out of that. And I also planned to go back to work school hours when my youngest started kindergarten.

I know everyone has different needs/wants, and situations. But I just wanted to outline what worked for us. [/quote]

$200 for eating out/entertainment? Oh my. $1200 a year for clothes for a whole family?  No charitable giving?[/quote]

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