2016 almost here

sweaterweather2015 · November 2015

hey nesties, newbie here! i notice this was a basically the only "active" topic on here so i decided to join! I'm not sure how much info you all share on this board but i was wondering if anyone has done their 2016 monthly budget yet and if so, is that something you all post here. I have done ours , so i figure y not post it! i love getting different budgeting ideas so if you have done one please post !

2 income family 6800.00 month after taxes

rent- 780
car note- 250
car insurance 108
life insurance- 40
electric- 150-250 ( depends on season)
water bill- 45
cell phones- 90- straight talk
netflix- 8.00
internet- 45.00

other
groceries- 400
gas- 240 ( both cars)
household- 100.00
miscellaneous- 200

finances
savings - 2000.00

we have no debt at all

hoffse · November 2015

OP, I'm getting an extra $2200 unaccounted for. Where does the rest of it go? Isn't your car note debt?

I've done a tentative budget for 2016, but H and I are both up for raises at the end of the year. We won't know about that until December, so ours may change.

sweaterweather2015 · November 2015

lol@hoffse, i meant i have no other debt. i have not decided yet what to do with the extra 2200 so im hoping to get ideas from you all

cupcait927 · November 2015

@sweaterweather2015 are you currently funding retirement accounts?

hoffse · November 2015

Ideas for the extra $2200:

1) Retirement - you want to be saving around 15% of your gross income in your 20's/early 30's

2) Emergency fund

3) Save for a vacation or house down payment

4) Go ahead and pay off the car (for me it would depend on term and rate you have as to whether I would do this early at all vs. putting it ahead of one of the other things)

That's probably the order in which I would do it.

als1982 · November 2015

I'd first pay off the car and then max out two ROTHs.

dragonstarjk · November 2015

Ditto. With an extra $2200, you could be contributing a decent amount to retirement, if you don't already. Plus e-fund, house fund, etc.

We haven't finalized our 2016 budget; we are also waiting to hear if we will receive raises next year. I'll find out by the end of the year, but if I get a raise it won't go into effect until March 1st.

julieanne912 · November 2015

Not sure of your ages, but the first thing I would do if your numbers were mine, is save up to buy a home, instead of renting, assuming you plan on staying in the area for 3+ years. I'm guessing, based on your rent amount, that you live in a low cost of living area, so saving up a 20% downpayment shouldn't be very hard with all of your surplus income.

Then I would start contributing some towards retirement and work on paying the car off.

cbee817 · November 2015

Make sure your retirement is in good shape and decide what your plans are for the next few years (buy a house, big vacation, etc). I would pay off your car loan sooner if the interest rate is on the higher side.

$2,200/month is a great amount of $ to get on track quickly with any future plans you might have!

hoffse · November 2015

WTH I haven't posted ours in a long time. This is my tentative for 2016, keeping in mind it could change.

Mortgage: $1883

Car loan: $503 (36 month loan - will be paid off in September)

H's undergrad loans: $180

Law school loans: $2,340 (includes extra payments to be done in 7 years)

H's life insurance: $15

Car insurance: $108

Water line insurance: $5

Utilities: $450 - electric, gas, water and varies based on season

Cell phones: $130

Internet/Cable: $93

Ooma: $5

Hulu/Netflix: $16

Gym: $20

United Way: $20

Square space: $20

Health/prescription: $110 (currently free, but I budget just in case)

ROTHs: $410

Acorns: $50

Annual expense sinking fund: $500

Clothes sinking fund: $300

Gifts sinking fund: $100

Groceries/Costco: $500

Gas: $150

Save or Spend: $2,375

**EDIT: Everything else gets lumped into save or spend. Historically we have used this to do home improvements, so the budget has been kind of tight, especially because we remodeled the kitchen this past year. We have a little more left for next year, but then I'm done until we sell the house. If/when we have kids, that will eat up a lot of our extra.

brij2006 · November 2015

@hoffse You're genius. Why the heck have I never thought to just rope all of our utilities into 1 line item? When the electricity goes up, the gas goes down and vise versa. I'm always trying to estimate each of them, and it's so hard to. Why have I not just put them together in 1?

hoffse · November 2015

brij2006 said:

@hoffse You're genius. Why the heck have I never thought to just rope all of our utilities into 1 line item? When the electricity goes up, the gas goes down and vise versa. I'm always trying to estimate each of them, and it's so hard to. Why have I not just put them together in 1?

Yeah I finally thought to do that around July of this year, and suddenly it was so much easier to budget. Most of the time we're right around $400 total for all of it, but the individual utilities fluctuate so much it was driving me crazy, and the extra $50 accounts for higher bills at the height of summer and winter.

julieanne912 · November 2015

brij2006 said:

@hoffse You're genius. Why the heck have I never thought to just rope all of our utilities into 1 line item? When the electricity goes up, the gas goes down and vise versa. I'm always trying to estimate each of them, and it's so hard to. Why have I not just put them together in 1?

I do the lump line item too because it's too hard to figure it out every month... so I just allot $300 for utilities. That's probably actually too high for the winter because we've discovered that the heating costs for the house are less than the cooling costs, because the back of our house (where we do the most living) has south and west exposures.

I do have to readjust in summer because of water, but we're still figuring out exactly what that will be because we put the lawn in in July, and had to water the crap out of it for the first month so I was looking at $200 water bills. But next summer we'll be able to see what it's actually like with normal watering.

als1982 · November 2015

brij2006 said:
@hoffse You're genius. Why the heck have I never thought to just rope all of our utilities into 1 line item? When the electricity goes up, the gas goes down and vise versa. I'm always trying to estimate each of them, and it's so hard to. Why have I not just put them together in 1?

We are on an equal payment plan for both electric and natural gas. It's pretty much the best thing ever.

brij2006 · November 2015

als1982 said:

@hoffse You're genius. Why the heck have I never thought to just rope all of our utilities into 1 line item? When the electricity goes up, the gas goes down and vise versa. I'm always trying to estimate each of them, and it's so hard to. Why have I not just put them together in 1?
We are on an equal payment plan for both electric and natural gas. It's pretty much the best thing ever.

We actually just got off of it with our gas. We had them send us a statement of use for the last 5 years we have owned the house. On average we were over paying them $475/year for their "estimated use." The last 2 years we have overpayed by $600/year. So we're going to see how bad it is this year with being off it. We also just installed a wood burning fireplace in our living room, so we have been using that to keep cozy.

julieanne912 · November 2015

als1982 said:

@hoffse You're genius. Why the heck have I never thought to just rope all of our utilities into 1 line item? When the electricity goes up, the gas goes down and vise versa. I'm always trying to estimate each of them, and it's so hard to. Why have I not just put them together in 1?
We are on an equal payment plan for both electric and natural gas. It's pretty much the best thing ever.

Yeah we can't do that til the end of this next year cause our house is new

als1982 · November 2015

brij2006 said:

als1982 said:

brij2006 said:
@hoffse You're genius. Why the heck have I never thought to just rope all of our utilities into 1 line item? When the electricity goes up, the gas goes down and vise versa. I'm always trying to estimate each of them, and it's so hard to. Why have I not just put them together in 1?
We are on an equal payment plan for both electric and natural gas. It's pretty much the best thing ever.

We actually just got off of it with our gas. We had them send us a statement of use for the last 5 years we have owned the house. On average we were over paying them $475/year for their "estimated use." The last 2 years we have overpayed by $600/year. So we're going to see how bad it is this year with being off it. We also just installed a wood burning fireplace in our living room, so we have been using that to keep cozy.

Wow. That's crazy. Each bill for us is less than $55 a month (and heat and AC is one area that I won't skimp on), so I'm guessing if we're being over charged it's not by much.

cbee817 · November 2015

Here is ours as an estimate for 2016- family of 4, both of us work.

Mortgage and escrow: $1335

Car loan: $505

Day care for DD#2 and after school for DD#1: $1168

Life insurance: $41.46 (we pay the yearly total of $497.50 in February)

Car insurance: $69.58 (we pay the yearly total of $835 in July)

Furnace/AC maintenance plan: $11.59 (2 cleanings/checks a year, discount on repairs and parts, and free service calls)

Utilities: $177.51 - monthly average for electric, gas, water

Cell phones: $148.46

Internet/basic 23 channel Cable: $93.76

Netflix: $7.99

Target: $230 (mostly for toiletries, household items, clothes for the girls, gifts, etc)

Clothes and shoes: $100

Misc: $200 (may include a meal out, memberships to the childrens' museum, donations, school expenses for DH, etc)

Groceries: $800

Gas: $150

Savings: $500/paycheck (averages $2166/month) This also fully funds our Roth IRA accounts with 2 transfers per year.

529 plans for the girls: $350

Balance: $722- some of this will go to paying for the upstairs bathroom remodel we're planning for early 2016. We'll probably buy all of the supplies using a Home Depot credit card financed at 0% for 12 months.

brij2006 · November 2015

als1982 said:

als1982 said:

@hoffse You're genius. Why the heck have I never thought to just rope all of our utilities into 1 line item? When the electricity goes up, the gas goes down and vise versa. I'm always trying to estimate each of them, and it's so hard to. Why have I not just put them together in 1?
We are on an equal payment plan for both electric and natural gas. It's pretty much the best thing ever.

We actually just got off of it with our gas. We had them send us a statement of use for the last 5 years we have owned the house. On average we were over paying them $475/year for their "estimated use." The last 2 years we have overpayed by $600/year. So we're going to see how bad it is this year with being off it. We also just installed a wood burning fireplace in our living room, so we have been using that to keep cozy.
Wow. That's crazy. Each bill for us is less than $55 a month (and heat and AC is one area that I won't skimp on), so I'm guessing if we're being over charged it's not by much.

Yeah ours was anywhere from $125-148/month (it fluctuated based on past years' usage). Which I never understood, because why are we overpaying so much when they're technically estimating the locked in amount based on the prior years' use?

We have new efficient windows, our furnace is efficient, we have insulated quite a bit of the house, and this year we will have the fireplace. So we figure that we may end up coming out ahead this year since they would be basing it on last year.

Only downfall is we will actually set our thermostat at a reasonable temp (we used to be around 64-68), now that DD is here. Our house is still an old and drafty home even with the updates.

simplyelise · November 2015

We're in debt payoff mode, we have no kids and no house and we only contribute the required amount to retirement (DH 4%, me 0) until July 2016 when we get debt free. I'm 26 and DH is 27.

Take home: $5112

Tithe: $512

New Car Sinking Fund: $100

Gym Sinking Fund: $20

Rent: $690

Utilities: $140

Cell: $121

Life Insurance: $16

Car & Renter Insurance: $125

Fuel: $220

Food: $340

CoPays: $15

Blow Money: $120 ($60 each)

Date Night: $50

Toiletries: $20

Haircuts: $12

Netflix: $8

MISC (gifts, family visits): depends on the month

Student Loans: ~$2500 (Balance is 24,000 at 6.8%)

We actually only get one utility bill because we're on city electric, water, sewer, and trash. And our internet/cable is provided on a local network in our apartment complex for free. It's pretty nice. I want to do the budget billing but for some reason DH is staunchly opposed. The last place I lived, we were just outside city limits and we had bills for internet, water, sewer, trash, electric, and gas. I lived there with two roommates and we each had two accounts in our name. The reconciliations involved a complex spreadsheet to minimize the amount of checks flying between us.

AprilZ81 · November 2015

Ours won't change too much in 2016, I just reworked our because of I finally got a job after being laid off for 6 months.

DH should get a raise and bonus in March and if I'm eligible for a raise (probably not due to my hire date) it would probably be about that same time.

Our only debt is our mortgage and HELOC.

DH contributes 5% (with a fully vested 5% match) and I contribute 6% (with a 50% of the first 6% match, I'm currently 25% vested) to our 401(k)s.

Take home pay: $6901 (minus 401(k), taxes and benefits)

Mortgage/Utilities/Cell Phones: $2,400 (mortgage is $1750)
Vehicle Gas: $125 (I work from home and DH works 5 miles from home)
Groceries/Supplies: $475
My Fun Money: $125
DH Fun Money: $125
Entertainment: $350
Church/Charity: $500
HELOC: $300
Sinking Fund: $101 (netflix, Amazon Prime, lawn service, vehicle registrations, etc.)
Clothes: $50
Home Improvement: $100
Car Insurance/Car Savings: $135
General Savings: $700
Vacation Fund: $250
Christmas/Birthday/Gifts: $250
ROTHs: $915

2015 will be the first year we will both max out a ROTH and we plan to do the same in 2016. All of our funds roll over to the next month if we don't use it all.

Our general savings is currently waiting for our bathroom remodel in January and then we will start working on saving up for a baby fund (should only take 4-5 months at our current savings rate.

DH's bonus will either to go towards the HELOC or to establish the baby fund.

I'm currently undergoing fertility treatments so our savings rate might decline a bit as we have to pay out of pocket for most of it.

bmo88 · November 2015

@brij2006 Do people have separate bills for gas, water and electric? May be a dumb question, but curious. Here, it's all one bill. Also, do a lot of you have huge homes? Just curious with how high some bills are. Ours is between $125-$180 throughout the year for a 2,800 sq ft home.

bmo88 · November 2015

@simplyelise: Even though you are close to paying off debt, have you considered putting at least a $100-$200 a month toward retirement? It wouldn't slow down debt repayment too much, but you would benefit in the long run from compound interest. Not sure if you have contributed to retirement before, but even some now is better than playing catch up later. We owe about $20,000 in student loans at 6.8% and pay about $1,700 a month to it because we put $825 a month toward retirement. Our return to date has been 7.8% and compound interest will pay off majorly in the end. I am sure you have though it through, just curious!

Xstatic3333 · November 2015

bmo88 said:
@brij2006 Do people have separate bills for gas, water and electric? May be a dumb question, but curious. Here, it's all one bill. Also, do a lot of you have huge homes? Just curious with how high some bills are. Ours is between $125-$180 throughout the year for a 2,800 sq ft home.

I think it really varies by state and town. We have all of those PLUS sewer. Rates really vary by area, too. We have a 1700 sf home if you count the basement, and our gas and electric is $190 on a budget plan (one line item here, too). HE boiler, new windows, but poor insulation. Cold state but not as cold as some.

I love the way our budget plan works. We pay an estimated amount all year, but in the twelfth month we square up. If we've underpaid we get a refund, and if we've overpaid we owe more. This way we can still benefit from being careful with our usage. Electric rates are going down here so I'm hoping for a refund.

simplyelise · November 2015

bmo88 said:

@simplyelise: Even though you are close to paying off debt, have you considered putting at least a $100-$200 a month toward retirement? It wouldn't slow down debt repayment too much, but you would benefit in the long run from compound interest. Not sure if you have contributed to retirement before, but even some now is better than playing catch up later. We owe about $20,000 in student loans at 6.8% and pay about $1,700 a month to it because we put $825 a month toward retirement. Our return to date has been 7.8% and compound interest will pay off majorly in the end. I am sure you have though it through, just curious!

DH has to contribute 4% right now because he works for the state, that works out to about $1400/yr. He has about $1500 in his retirement account today. I did contribute a small % previously, but most of my contributions were on a 25k salary, so I only have $2000 in my account. I am also halfway to vesting in my local government pension which is fully employer-paid and the pension is 98% pre-funded so super secure. Our total debt payoff is only 21 months, Nov '14-July '16. I contributed some in 2014, DH has contributed 4% in 2015 and we will be done with enough time to fund 2016 Roths. I will turn 27 the month we pay off the loans and DH will be 28 1/2. And we will jump up to 15% contribution (not considering the pension) then. So I don't really consider us behind. Frankly, you guys make significantly more than we do even after your contributions, so I think our calculations are always going to look different.

als1982 · November 2015

bmo88 said:
@brij2006 Do people have separate bills for gas, water and electric? May be a dumb question, but curious. Here, it's all one bill. Also, do a lot of you have huge homes? Just curious with how high some bills are. Ours is between $125-$180 throughout the year for a 2,800 sq ft home.

Our electric, gas, water and sewer are four separate bills. (Trash is included in my property taxes, but the suburb next to us not 100 meters away you have to pay for that separately too, though you can choose your own company.) Electric and gas are about $55 a month each, and water and sewer are about $35 a month each. Our house is less than 1,000 feet excluding an unfinished basement and attic. The house is old with original windows but we have lots of mature trees for shade and a completely new HVAC system.

hoffse · November 2015

bmo88 said:

@brij2006 Do people have separate bills for gas, water and electric? May be a dumb question, but curious. Here, it's all one bill. Also, do a lot of you have huge homes? Just curious with how high some bills are. Ours is between $125-$180 throughout the year for a 2,800 sq ft home.

It depends on climate but also state utility taxes. I live in a state with very high utility taxes, and our state is one of the very few where utility companies don't have to justify rates to the state legislature each year. They are all in each other's pockets. Nothing anybody can do about it.

Our water bill is stupid because my city went bankrupt a few years ago, and they are paying off creditors by hiking water/sewer rates each year.

Our house was an inefficient 2900 sq ft (up and down combined) ranch when we bought it. We have enacted some energy saving things - the biggest so far being insulating the attic. That has helped tremendously because there was virtually no insulation up there for the first 8 months we owned the house. I'm still budgeting based off of last year's numbers, so I'm hoping next year my utility budget will be lower.

formerlyGDaisy09 · November 2015

bmo88 said:

@brij2006 Do people have separate bills for gas, water and electric? May be a dumb question, but curious. Here, it's all one bill. Also, do a lot of you have huge homes? Just curious with how high some bills are. Ours is between $125-$180 throughout the year for a 2,800 sq ft home.

we have seperate bills. our water/sewer bill is from the city, usually about $120-150 quarterly (more in the summer when I'm watering the garden). Electric is from the utility company and generally ranges from $90-160/month less in the fall/spring, more in the summer/winter when we're using AC or it's just dark more. We shop around for propane, it usually costs us about $1500 for the year, our heat and hot water are fueled by propane.

I'm excited to see some of these numbers change with our recent house work, our electric bill last month was the first since our net-metering with the solar install got turned on...it was $12. Our new windows are going in this week, the contractor said all our draftiness/moisture build-up issues were because the last windows were installed poorly, so I'm hoping we'll see some savings on both our heating and A/C from now on.

brij2006 · November 2015

@bmo88 Ours are all separate. The only thing that is bundled together is Water/Sewer/Trash.

Our house is a 3,000 square foot late 1800's Victorian. So it's definitely not the most efficient home. It will be surprising to see what our gas bill is this year now that we are no longer on the set payment plan. That will be the true test to how efficient our home is.

However, our electricity bill, even in the height of summer (100 degree, 100% humidity) has been $180 max. So I am hoping that our gas bill will only get to $250ish.

formerlyGDaisy09 · November 2015

LOTS of our budget is in flux (previously mentioned energy saving upgrades to the house plus new baby...here's where things stand right now).

Take Home: $5200 (this is with H's minimum $500/week which RARELY happens $5,600 is closer to reality). This is after retirement contributions, health insurance premiums, and my life insurance.

Mortgage: 1575

Car Note: 346

Student Loans: 754

Cell phones: 155

Internet 88

Netflix 8

Electric 50*

Water/sewer 45

Propane 125*

Home insurance 110

Car Insurance 99

Gas 125

groceries 500

household 100

pet food 150

haircuts 45

misc. 200**

HSA contribution 200

H Fun 25

Me Fun 25

Entertainment 150

car sinking fund 75

vet sinking 150

TOTAL Out: $5,309

So we're pretty tight with our spending/income. the reality is, at least for now, the electric and propane rates are gross overestimates based on past costs, I don't feel comfortable lowering them until we've gone through the winter and have a better idea what our actual use might be. the $200 misc category is meant for baby expenses we're cloth diapering and will be fighting hard to exclusively breast feed , we've got 2 lactation consultants on our team and I've already got the fourth-trimester support group at the local women's center on my calendar for after baby. so I'm hoping $200 is an over estimate. fortunately november-january H's income is more like $700/week, so we'll have a little time to adjust our budget if that's not enough. Budget items I'm planning to address if we need more wiggle room are the cell-phone bill, groceries, entertainment, and hair cuts; I'm guessing I can "find" another ~$200 there.

simplyelise · November 2015

hoffse said:

bmo88 said:

@brij2006 Do people have separate bills for gas, water and electric? May be a dumb question, but curious. Here, it's all one bill. Also, do a lot of you have huge homes? Just curious with how high some bills are. Ours is between $125-$180 throughout the year for a 2,800 sq ft home.

It depends on climate but also state utility taxes. I live in a state with very high utility taxes, and our state is one of the very few where utility companies don't have to justify rates to the state legislature each year. They are all in each other's pockets. Nothing anybody can do about it.

Our water bill is stupid because my city went bankrupt a few years ago, and they are paying off creditors by hiking water/sewer rates each year.

Our house was an inefficient 2900 sq ft (up and down combined) ranch when we bought it. We have enacted some energy saving things - the biggest so far being insulating the attic. That has helped tremendously because there was virtually no insulation up there for the first 8 months we owned the house. I'm still budgeting based off of last year's numbers, so I'm hoping next year my utility budget will be lower.

Super interested in this because I work for municipally-owned utilities who make their rate decisions at the city level. Do you not have a public service commission? Or a requirement that the investor-owned utilities only recoup a reasonable return in profits? The utility and telecom industries definitely own most state legislatures, but usually the non-partisan, appointed, public service commissioners have jurisdiction over rate increase requests. My only guess is that maybe your state has a competitive energy market and you can choose your own provider? Even so, gosh, I would hope somebody there is trying to organize an initiative petition to regulate IOU profits. The utility regulation world is fascinating and horrible.

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