Stephen from Canada
Posted: Sat Sep 08, 2018 7:55 pm
Hello everyone! I come from a fairly frugal background (lived below "poverty line" in Canada, then in a 3rd world country) but while I continued to live more frugally than my coworkers, my large salary did create slow lifestyle inflation that I did not avoid because "well, but I have the money..." -- I came to understand how wrong I had been just after getting married when I googled "how much do I need to retire" and found MMM.
Over at the MMM forums they do "case studies" where people post their expenses and others with a different perspective may see where you're being the most wasteful that you can't see just because you've looked at your own numbers for so long. I think this is a great idea, but I doubt I'd get much out of posting there because we've managed to cut our spending back to levels a bit above average for that forum. I thought it couldn't hurt to post a summary here and see if anyone had anything fun to say:
Budget for two people (and an 8-month-old):
Charity $374.43
Rent $1,600.00
Utilities $200.00
Food $200.00
Car Gas $100.00
Car Repair / Replace $170.00
Car Insurance $119.92
Vacation $150.00
Miscellaneous $62.00
Continuing Education $50.00
Kids $60.00
Phone + Internet $97.60
Entertainment $50.00
Gifts $30.00
House Maintenance $10.00
Bike / Transit $20.00
Health & Wellness $80.00
Museum $5.83
Hobby $42.79
This is ~41000 (6 Jacobs) / year or, after removing rent (which I know is a touchy topic) ~21000 (3 Jacobs) -- seems like there is obviously some room for improvement based on that metric alone
Over at the MMM forums they do "case studies" where people post their expenses and others with a different perspective may see where you're being the most wasteful that you can't see just because you've looked at your own numbers for so long. I think this is a great idea, but I doubt I'd get much out of posting there because we've managed to cut our spending back to levels a bit above average for that forum. I thought it couldn't hurt to post a summary here and see if anyone had anything fun to say:
Budget for two people (and an 8-month-old):
Charity $374.43
Rent $1,600.00
Utilities $200.00
Food $200.00
Car Gas $100.00
Car Repair / Replace $170.00
Car Insurance $119.92
Vacation $150.00
Miscellaneous $62.00
Continuing Education $50.00
Kids $60.00
Phone + Internet $97.60
Entertainment $50.00
Gifts $30.00
House Maintenance $10.00
Bike / Transit $20.00
Health & Wellness $80.00
Museum $5.83
Hobby $42.79
This is ~41000 (6 Jacobs) / year or, after removing rent (which I know is a touchy topic) ~21000 (3 Jacobs) -- seems like there is obviously some room for improvement based on that metric alone