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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Your total outlay is $1,600? We spend a little bit under that just on groceries.  We spend more than $1,600 a month between groceries and eating out. My husband spends $3,000 a month on leisure purchases just on one of his credit cards.  How much do you spend on vacation? How much do you and your wife spend annually on clothes?[/quote]

Yep. We splurge on one of those meal boxes 3 days a week ($240/mo) but the rest of the days are pretty modest. Pasta and a salad, burgers and hot dogs on the grill, homemade mac and cheese, shepherds pie, that sort of thing.  We'll spend about $100-$200 a week at the grocery store including wine and beer. We get takeout or delivery 2 or 3 times a month, again modest stuff like pizza or thai, probably $75-$100 a month total.  We don't eat out terribly often but when we do it's low to mid priced but good food. Places like Zenebech Injera (RIP) on the lower end with places like Toki Underground in the middle and somewhere like Bindaas on the higher end for us.  We'll splurge on a nicer place like Rasika 2 or 3 times a year.  We probably spend about $150-$200 a month eating out.

Clothes I spend very, very little on. I bought 3 pairs of pants for $100 this month and that was the first time I bought pants in 2 years. I'll buy a couple dress shirts a year for maybe $50 each to replace ones that wear out. I don't have to dress up for work much so I have been rocking the same 4 suits (around $1000 total: 1 cheapo Jos. A Bank, 1 nicer Suitsupply, 2 hand me downs from my uncle I got tailored to fit me) for the past 6 or 7 years and they all still have plenty of life left in them. Non-work wear are jeans and t shirts - $50 every other year for a new pair of jeans, $50 a year or so to replace t shirts that get too many holes in them.  My wife spends more but certainly nothing extravagant. Probably $2,000 a year.

The rest is all miscellaneous stuff that isn't very expensive.  Movie tickets, video games, (I usually stay a generation behind so I can pick up used titles for $10 or less) the occasional concert or festival.  We have very simple tastes, so our weeknights are spent reading or watching movies. Our weekends are spent gardening, taking hikes with our dog, and hanging out with friends. (burgers and beer in the back yard, karaoke at dive bars, that sort of thing)

Vacations are our one big expense really. We usually take one big vacation a year for a week or so and one or two long weekends.  For long weekends we will rent an airbnb nearby (Ocean city, West Virginia, etc.) with several friends and split costs for food and booze, which usually ends up being less than $200 a person for the long weekend.  For our big trips we keep it fun but low key. Right now we are planning a trip to Prague which will probably run us less than $3,000-$4,000 total. ($2,000 for the flights, $500 for an airbnb in the heart of the city for the week. I'm not sure exactly how much to budget for food and transit, but according to guides a beer costs about 50 cents in USD there, so not much!)

It's not a fancy life, but it's the life we like.

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