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Poll: How much do you budget...
How much do you guys budget for outside of bills/necessities spending? Basically entertainment, eating out, clothes, lawn mower, whatever things that aren't towards the daily necessities of living.
Despite the fact that we've been married for over a year, once the formal wedding was over and we got back from our honeymoon, D started freaking out about saving and spending. He put us on a super aggressive savings plan with the intention that the savings will go towards future babies and paying off our home. I'm starting to chafe a little as I've sort of always lived by the estimate in my head sort of savings. That is, if my accounts go under a certain amount of money, I panic and stop spending. :P So I did the math and without a kid, the aggressive spending we're at will shave about 15 years off our mortgage, while we don't go on vacations, go out to eat, or do much of anything. With kids, it won't shave that much more off.
For the record, after bills, mortgage and what not, he's set aside 400 dollars a month for anything 'extra.' It does not roll over. :P I'm trying to figure out a calm way to point out that this is not enjoying life. But I'm also wondering if my idea of enjoying life really is as spendy as he makes it out to be.
Re: Poll: How much do you budget...
Our entertainment/eating out/alcohol budget is $250/month. It really helps our savings grow. We are "allowed" to buy clothes/accessories/gifts for others, but try to keep each purchase under $50 and be reasonable with how often we make such purchases; example: DH will give me a hard time if I start having multiple UPS/FedEx deliveries in a week. We both put 10% of each paycheck into our separate savings accounts, and then about 20% of our paychecks combined into our joint savings account.
We are non-homeowners, and are trying to save for a townhouse/house and keep a certain amount for emergencies.
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ummm...i guess this might sound irresponsible, but h and i don'r "budget" perse.... we always "use our best judgement" and anything extra at the end of the month goes into our savings account(s). our totals vary month to month, and we dip into savings for vacations. we haven't ever made any major purposes (including our new tv) that we didn't have enough during our regular-paycheck-cycle that needed us to tap savings.
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♥ baby jennlin born on 02/15/2012 ♥
who says you can only wear your wedding dress once?
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We never budgeted until one day I was so frustrated that I told H that we had to come up with a plan because I was going crazy not knowing if he was going to be chewing my head off for spending money or if he would say oh that's ok.
I'm not sure what our budget is set at but it's pretty low. We usually allow ourselves to eat out 1-2 times a month, which costs us about $50 at the most. We never drink out, so there isn't really any costs from that, maybe a case of beer a month if that. (we don't drink much) As far as clothing etc. If we need to make major purchases then we look at what we have extra that month and use some of that instead of putting it into savings. Our personal allowance a month is usually between $25-40 a month, depending on how many other things come in between.
We live really frugally, thanks to H and sometimes it drives me crazy. I'm kinda glad that he is the way he is though because I spend money like crazy if I can lol
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omg, this adds to my money/crazy stresses... $400 seems like a pretty good deal to me!
maybe you'll thank him later??
pretty much that
Also, things like house cleaner and the yard guy are line items in our budget, so they don't come out of fun money, however if needed those would be the first to go. While those things don't come down to life and death, they're pretty vital to us right now.
I'm like you -- I have some vague idea of how much the savings account should be going up. If it doesn't go up that much, I panic and stop spending. that said.
I'm usually all in favor of saving more, paying of mortgages early, etc., but cutting a 30 year mortgage into 15 years is nuts. At that point, you should just get a 15 year mortgage, you'll get a lower interest rate. Really H should be figuring out what his savings goals are and then working backwards from there.
If your looking for calm ways to point out that H is taking all the fun out of life, ask him to think about how old he'll be then, and the fact that there may be a 10-12 year-old family, and there's nothing wrong with spending *some* money on yourself.
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this- also, continuing to borrow at 4 or 5ish percent (you bought this year, right?) is an awesome rate. take that money and invest elsewhere with a better return.
♥ bfp1 06/14/2011 ♥ edd 02/22/2012 ♥
♥ baby jennlin born on 02/15/2012 ♥
who says you can only wear your wedding dress once?
honeymoon bio ♥ married bio ♥ planning bio
jumped ship to the new and improved nest. back to TB for baby boards.
This. I have a written budget as a "guideline," but really I just pay the bills, go out when we want (not often) and try to save what we can. I'd say we spend no more than $400 a month on eating out and entertainment (and MOST of that is Starbucks!). Of course if we go on vacation or for our anniversary or a show or something we may have a month that's much higher. When I was younger, didn't have a house, wasn't married and kids weren't in the near future, I spent A LOT more eating out, drinking, etc.