Money Matters
123bedebtfree
member
Dear Community,
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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.
HAPPY 2017 EVERYONE- BUDGET TIME
Hope all of you had a wonderful and safe new year! My goal is to stay on budget! Here is our 2017 budget with a few changes from 2016
Joint income- 4000.00 ( same)
mortgage- 1075
electricity- 250.00 ( use to be 200 but kept going over budget)
water- 70- use to be 45
netflix- 11.99
dish network- 35.00
hulu- 8
car insurance( 3 vehicles) 245 - 2 full coverage one liability
life insurance 76
internet -55
car payment-206
cell bill-123
hoa- 110.00 - increased from 95
gas -200
groceries- 400
toiletries- 50
savings- 500
vacation-500
left over stays in checking
what is your new 2017 budget? whats different from your 2016 budget
Joint income- 4000.00 ( same)
mortgage- 1075
electricity- 250.00 ( use to be 200 but kept going over budget)
water- 70- use to be 45
netflix- 11.99
dish network- 35.00
hulu- 8
car insurance( 3 vehicles) 245 - 2 full coverage one liability
life insurance 76
internet -55
car payment-206
cell bill-123
hoa- 110.00 - increased from 95
gas -200
groceries- 400
toiletries- 50
savings- 500
vacation-500
left over stays in checking
what is your new 2017 budget? whats different from your 2016 budget
Re: HAPPY 2017 EVERYONE- BUDGET TIME
-Increase retirement/investments by 1% (we do this every year).
-Send an extra $700/month to student loans.
-I just got a car last week, so that will add $450 to our budget each month. H's car is paid off.
-Disability insurance just started auto-deducting last month, so it's still very new to us. That's $200/month.
-Starting to budget $200/month for health care. We rarely consume health care, but we are both on high deductible policies, and we are TTC.
-$1,000/month toward our baby/slush fund. We plan to just keep adding to this through the year so that we have a really nice cushion for unexpected expenses after birth or an option to take some unpaid leave. If we don't conceive this year, then we will reassess this slush fund going into 2018.
Finally, this is not MM at all, but I am adding $300/month to our budget for "services." This is lawn care, home care, dry cleaning, tailoring, etc. Could we do all of this ourselves? Yes. But our time is limited, and we can afford to hire others to do these things for us. H and I both got large raises this year, and this is going to improve our standard of living a lot.
Good! I'll take this opportunity to get my financial thoughts in order. I have too much going on.
Income: $8185 (gross, except f/t job)- down $140/month because I lost two hotels on my p/t gig. Also $2655 (net) is my f/t job income which is going bye-bye in the near future. But I'll be adding another $1800-$1900, once I get tenants in my new duplex (been taking TOO long). So. It's a moving target!
Car Insurance: $225 (no car payment)
Mortgages: $1,115
HELOC: $2300, this is the strangler, large balance only amoritized for 10 years. Planning a cash-out refi of one of my properties in the next 1-2 months to cut the balance in half and get a better monthly cash flow.
Property taxes not escrowed: $300/month (paid annually)
Property/Flood insurance not escrowed: $305 (down $60/month)
Electricity: varies around $120
Water/Trash: $60
Cable/Internet: $150 (just went up $25)
Cell phones: $90
Gas: $40
Groceries: $400
Medical: $300 (currently using HSA, which is taken out before my net)
18% set aside from rental income for future vacancies/repairs: $730
CC Payments: I'm not sure the minimums. I used to pay them off every month, but they got out of control with my reno. Now I pay them down about $1K-$2K/month. I want to pay most of these off again after my cash-out refi.
Right now, any extra income is going against either my credit card debt or HELOC balance.
I put together rough estimates of costs for what we want to buy this year in major expenditure categories:
$700 trip to Florida
$1000 new computer
$1200 for next season's hockey tickets
$2000 landscaping
$4000 vacation(s)
And a general goal to save $5000 by the end of the year to start our new car fund.
That's $13,900 this year ($1158 per month) to cover everything. The total may change based on actuals and we may have some leeway depending on if we get a tax refund, etc.
I'm calculating that our monthly income towards family expenses will leave us with $740 extra per month to meet these goals. That is a bit short of of the $1158 per month goal. We will most likely make up this gap by continuing to do AirBnb but we'll see how things are lining up after our first few months and make adjustments as needed.
I'm going to try to not get distracted by "small" projects that take up money but I don't know how successful I will be.
We need a new garage door, replacing it with what we want will be about $2,500 including a new opener and installation. I want to pull up our brick patio that is in the front of the house where there should be a flower bed, I would love to hire that out but I think we will have to DIY that one to save money. I would rather get more mature plants to have an immediate impact on our curb appeal. Those two projects will probably be this spring and then our outdoor projects will be done until we start replacing windows.
I'm also hoping to re-do our master bathroom but no word yet from our contractor on when we can get on his schedule.
We will also be TTC again sometime in mid-late spring. We will be seeing a specialist so we will have more medical bills. We have the nursery painted grey and the furniture purchased already, so if we do get pregnant a lot of the big expenses are already behind us.
In terms of spending, I added a line item for a cleaning service - but I've yet to pull the trigger on it. We'll see...
I thought about using a private individual to save money, but we decided that using a company that is insured is worth the extra expense. I don't know if it's like this with all companies, but the one we are looking at has insurance to cover legal/medical fees if one of the cleaners gets injured on our property. Basically they would indemnify us if we got sued. I'm not as concerned about theft, but if that were to happen that is also covered with their insurance.
Take home: $9000
Rent: 1950.00
Car Payment: 190.00
Gym: 10.00
Electricity/Gas: 200.00
Water: 45.00
DirecTV: 80.00
Internet: 85.00
Cell Phones: 150.00
Ballet: 120.00
Groceries: 800.00
Eating Out: 150.00
Gas: 200.00
Daycare: 1750.00
Before & After Care: 330.00
Credit Card: 1500.00
Savings: 800.00
I've put myself on a spending freeze as I'm a terrible online shopper. There are also items I plan to work on like lowering the grocery bill. Ballet will be over in June and instead of signing the girls up with summer activities ($$) we're going to take a break from structured activities until fall. Then they'll all start gymnastics. Credit card should be paid off in April. I get a bonus in February which may go towards paying off the debt or into savings.
So our monthly budget will be:
Gross Income: $10,300
Expenses:
Mortgage/Homeowner's Insurance: $1,750
Health Insurance Premiums: $225
HSA Contribution: $250
Phones: $85
Cable: $90
HOA (internet, cable and rec center/pools): $118
Car Insurance: $91
Car payments (paying off 2.5 years early): $1,000
Fuel: $80
Groceries: $450
Eating Out: $150
Flex/Fun Spending: $200 ($100 each)
Pets (food/vet/toys): $120
Toiletries/Cleaning Products: $75
Home Repairs Fund: $100
Savings/Investments:
Roth IRAs (combined): $916
401k (me): $1,000
General Stock Purchase: $98
Emergency Savings: $700
Baby Fund Savings: $300
We have other larger purchases/expenses come up throughout the year that we typically just cash flow and don't track monthly like vacations or furniture.