Your budget seems eerily similar to ours. It doesn’t seem like we live extravagantly, but I guess that is relative.

OP, the question is not what your spending is but whether you are overspending. If you can continue this spending without decreasing your assets, and if you are on track with your savings goals, then I say enjoy your lifestyle. There is no reason to constrain yourself.

$1000 for activities for three children seems reasonable to me. So is $2500 shopping for you and your husband.

You are clearly living a good life. Good for you.

OP’s family is the engine that keeps a consumer driven economy going 😂

You do you, OP, but do you really need to buy things like clothing and decor every single month?

Phone and internet is $400???? I assume 2 cell phones and verizon fios? That seems super high.

Personal care is very high too. I assume you're dyeing your hair every 6weeks and it's about $300 a trip? Where does the rest go?

I think you could cut about 5k without even trying. But if you enjoy your lifestyle and can afford it, why not?

A lot going on here by $500/month for kids clothes? $6000/year on kids clothes? I have two 10 year olds and never approached anything near that. I’m spending more on shoes these days (sigh, even tweens are into expensive shoes it seems) but again nothing like $6k.

We also spend about half what you do on groceries, and we eat a lot of lean meats and fish, fruits and vegetables (fresh fruit is expensive), so I can’t imagine how you get to $2k, esp with $1000 eating out. Those are the two that jumped out at me.

another humble bragging thread?

You are spending $3k a month on CLOTHES. I just, I can't.

Bookmarking this thread so I can link to it the next time someone claims that rich people are rich because they are better with money.

Are you asking for where you can cut, or where you are an outlier?

auto - reasonable

children - seems a tad high between clothes and activities (especially during the pandemic)

entertainment - seems high, could certainly not be spending as much on tickets unless you are an avid theater or sports fan

dining - reasonable

gifts - you need fewer friends, this seems high

health and fitness - reasonable to low

home and property - reasonable except for housekeeper. could do once a week

insurance - thats low

personal care - seems high. don't be so vain

shopping - could definitely cut here. how often do you need to buy a vacuum? how many hundreds are you spending on advil?

utilities - reasonable

The monthly spending on clothes and misc items seems crazy to me.

Clothes budget for adults and kids is inexplicably high. Are you throwing them out every month?

Wow. Yeah, almost every category seems high to me. How much do you eat out? That’s a lot. So is clothing and shopping.

Lots of it seems high. $1k/month on kid activities seems high. $1k a month on eating out seems high (how often are you eating out?). $1,250 a month for twice-weekly housekeepers is very much a luxury. $5,500 is a big mortgage/tax payment. $2,500 a month in miscellaneous spending you don't break out further is a lot.

Basically, you live a very lavish lifestyle, and you pay for it accordingly.

You're going to get a lot of crazy responses OP.

My favs are the ones who have 5 kids, eat 100% organic and spend $150/week on food, groceries, dining out, etc.

Outside of private school tuition, vacations, donations, and routine savings (401K, HSA, 529s, brokerage, etc), we spend 18K a month. Although we can "afford" it, I sometimes feel like we are just bleeding money, and I'm not quite sure what our worst offender is. So here's the breakdown of our monthly "budget" (which really is a snapshot of how we spend money more than dollar limits). What strikes you as the most absurd category? Or is it just that everything is a bit bloated? We are a family of five, two adults and three kids.

Auto and Transport - 1,000
(includes 750 for a super low interest car loan and 250 for gas, ubers, misc. repairs, car washes)

Children - 2,000
(includes 500 a month for regular babysitter, 500 a month on clothing for 3 young kids, and about 1000 a month on activities, music lessons, etc)

Entertainment - 500
(includes TV services, digital subscriptions, amazon prime, tickets to events, etc)

Food and Dining - 3000
(about 1K a month eating out, 2K on groceries for family of 5)

Gifts - 500
(for extended family at Christmas, plus weddings, birthdays, etc)

Health and Fitness - 100
(Peloton, yoga classes, etc - used to be more before covid)

Home and Property - 7400
(electricity and gas is 300, yard care is around 250, twice weekly housekeeper is 1250, mortgage and tax is 5500)

Insurance - 150
(life and auto)

Personal care - 500
(hair, nails, dry cleaning, etc)

Shopping - 2500
(clothes for both adults, not children, plus home goods, like vacuums or decor items, plus small random things like paper towels or advil)

Utilities - 400
(phone and internet)

I know this budget is far from "normal" (except maybe on dcum) but I'm really curious if any one category seems unusually high. Thoughts?