bare bones

bumnum55

Hey all, I'm Tracy and as we all know its almost 2016 ! time flies, i am in the process of doing my family's 2016 budget for the year just to get an idea of what things would look like. My question is what is a BARE BONES budget?  I hear people talk about it all the time and I was thinking about doing one just to see what line items would be included in a Bare Bones Budget. Thank in advance!

Mustard76

To me, bare bones means no wiggle room for wants. It's what we absolutely need in order to live and pay our bills. No entertainment, no eating out, no variations in the budget. Mortgage, utilities, gas to get to work, groceries, prescriptions, very few incidentals (i.e. funds set aside for car repairs, etc.) as they come up.

julieanne912

Mustard76 said:

To me, bare bones means no wiggle room for wants. It's what we absolutely need in order to live and pay our bills. No entertainment, no eating out, no variations in the budget. Nortgage, utilities, gas to get to work, groceries, prescriptions, very few incidentals (i.e. funds set aside for car repairs, etc.) as they come up.

Pretty much this.  Basically what do you need to survive if the goings got really tough... food, shelter, basic clothing, basic transportation.

hoffse

Agreed with the above.  What would it cost to pay your mortgage, insurance, utilities, and buy food and gas.  If you have debt you can't get out of (student loans), include the minimums as part of it.  If you have a car payment but could sell your car to offset it, then I would not include the car payment.  I would include basic internet for job searching, but not a data plan on a cell phone.

Erikan73

Agreed with above, no extras and no luxuries. Like no buying a shirt, even if it's a really good deal unless you need to replace a shirt that is worn out and shouldn't be worn out anymore. You need to think about how bare bones you want to go. Can you see yourself never eating out for a whole year? Take a look at the activities you do and what you can see yourself doing ok without and what things would make you miserable giving them up.  For me the thing that would make me miserable if I had to give it up would be my smartphone. I use it for of course, phone calls, texts, emails & on the net. But the huge thing for me is having access to youtube to listen to different shows & music while at work. It really helps to keep me focus and the day to go by. I'm very productive with it and I don't hear or get puuled into all the office drama going on around me. This really helps me with my job performance and happiness at work.

kmurphy2131

Erikan73 said:

Agreed with above, no extras and no luxuries. Like no buying a shirt, even if it's a really good deal unless you need to replace a shirt that is worn out and shouldn't be worn out anymore. You need to think about how bare bones you want to go. Can you see yourself never eating out for a whole year? Take a look at the activities you do and what you can see yourself doing ok without and what things would make you miserable giving them up.  For me the thing that would make me miserable if I had to give it up would be my smartphone. I use it for of course, phone calls, texts, emails & on the net. But the huge thing for me is having access to youtube to listen to different shows & music while at work. It really helps to keep me focus and the day to go by. I'm very productive with it and I don't hear or get puuled into all the office drama going on around me. This really helps me with my job performance and happiness at work.

Thats my thing - we could be bare bones budget about 1500 lower than I plan our bare bones budget to be.  But, I plan in some wiggle room (what if a car breaks? what if we need to start paying for health insurance?) and know that there is NO way we wouldn't want a little extra "play" money.  So I build that into my bare bones.  I guess if we truly both lost our jobs we could continue to readjust how we were spending to go more bare bones if we wanted.

short+sassy

While food is certainly a necessity, groceries is one of the biggest areas I cut my budget on a bare bones budget.  I generally keep it fairly generous because I like to buy what I like to buy/feel like eating.  But, in tough times, I can almost cut it in half by sticking to simple, cheap foods.

brij2006

Everyone's version of bare bones budgets are different.  For us it means $20 for eating out, $10 for entertainment (Redbox), no new clothes, eating from our pantry and freezer and spending very minimal on groceries and toiletries, watching every mile driven with vehicles so we can save on gas, and cutting every non-necessity expense.  

We would only cut to bare bones in the event of a job loss or to pile up cash to prepare for a job loss. If we were living off our emergency fund, then we would go to a bare bones budget.