Money Matters
cbee817
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
fun article
Saw this on yahoo- Typical american family needs X amount to live modestly- just type in your zip, # of adults, # of children. For me (2 adults, 2 kids) the monthly total is $6,487 or $77,843 for the year. For once, the child care amount is surprisingly accurate ($2,011/month), but I think the housing amount is too low ($710/month). What's yours?
Re: fun article
That was interesting! I'm in NOLA (2 adults, no kids) and my monthly total was $3,504.
Quite frankly, I thought most of their category estimates were way off. My actual monthly expenses are $2,950...but about $700 of that is the mortgage, taxes, insurance for a second house. So, really, I am probably more at $2250/month for my personal family. Over 1/3 less than their numbers.
They had $765 for housing. Just about right for owning, but it is substantially more for renting.
$473 for taxes? I'm wondering what taxes they are talking about. State and/or federal income? Sales? Property? All of that?
I'm in rural Wyoming (and really, it's kind of all rural, comparatively speaking....) and mine was $3,544/month. The highest categories were health care and transportation. I think these are pretty accurate-probably based on the fact that we don't have many options for health care and transportation is just plain hard when there's no public transport. and everything is hours away from everything else.
However, it said $598 for housing which is a total laugh fest. I'd put it at double that, easy. H and I's mortgage is $832 and we bought before the market went up, and we're paying way less than most people I know.
Seriously? Because, you know, there are only millions of people who live there (rolling eyes). But maybe they just lumped in all of So. CA.
I saw for my own area it was far from an exact science. It lumped a big section as the same area...though living costs can vary widely. Still interesting.
I figured the health numbers assumed having to buy insurance on the open market, rather than having an employer group policy. But, yeah, I wish there had been a bit more general information on what they were basing the different cost categories on.
For me, food for two adults was almost $500/month. I thought that was a bit high. We spend more like $350-$400 in groceries but, other than weekly sales and some Costco, I'm really not a budget shopper. I can cut that number by at least a third, if times are tough.
It's a large part of why I'm upset about how the president "fixed" the healthcare problem. He didn't fix the problem, just put a huge band-aid over it. I watched all the medical bills come in when we had our little one. Most were billed at least double if not 4-5 times the amount of the initial insurance company "discount". Then insurance paid for certain things (we have a high deductible plan) and we were left to pay the rest. I looked at a lot of the bills and said if they would just bill us these amounts in the first place, I could skip the insurance coverage.
Sounds like housing amounts are running too low across the board.
I'm still laughing at @Mustard76 's numbers. Apparently it is only $16/month cheaper to live in NOLA than Chicago. I bet there are monthly parking rates in Chicago that are more than a 1-bedroom apartment in NOLA!