Money Matters
TeamMccool
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.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
could you live off of $350/week
we are on a strict new pre baby budget and trying to spend only $350 per week. This has to include groceries, haircuts, gifts, prescriptions, clothes, eating out, etc. So basically all spending besides bills and gas for car. We are having a hard time staying in this budget.
My question is, is this a reasonable amount to have for these items per week? We live in HCOL.
So far this paycheck we have spent:
$175 on sale cole haan shoes for DH (obvious cut)
$140 restaurant week dinner out (obvious cut)
$12 farmers market
$14 qdoba for lunch
$17 2 maternity t shirts at Gap
$20 beer and a hoagie for DH to take to a friends house for football
$71 groceries
Re: could you live off of $350/week
We don't buy most of those things on a weekly basis. $350 would be way more than we currently spend on things like that.
I spend about $50 a week on groceries, but sometimes go up to $75 if we need to stock up on something (maybe 1x a month). We all take lunches every day and order takeout once a week.
***Nestie Bestie w/ TheDeatons***
Yes. After bills we used to allocate $1k for "food and entertainment".
$1400/mo is totally doable for us.
We try to stay under $2k now (and fail gloriously) but I am ready to get back on the saddle.
I think we could. It makes it a little harder if you include groceries because we usually spend at least $100 a week there, but most weeks we don't spend much on much else. However, the bigger expenses (yard care, contacts, vet bills, etc) that come up would be the killer.
So on the average week, yes, but averaged over 52 weeks a year - maybe not. If that makes any sense.
Easily. That is about $1500/mo after bills. Here is how we would spend it (actually this is more than we spend, but I upped some categories to get closer to your spending)
$400 groceries
$300 eating out
$300 fun money
$300 miscellaneous
$100 gifts
yes.. lol at the shoe purchase. can they be taken back?
No amount of education could convince Betty to be nice to possums
We do right now, most of the time. Sounds like you should maybe go to a cash system (or keep track of how much of the $350 you have left) - so if you get to the end of the money, you don't keep spending. Even putting off something like a shoe purchase till the next week would help.
Do you guys have fun money? If my H wants to go out with his friends and I'm not going, that usually comes out of his money, not our budget, you know?
Germany 2012
So we do $250 a week and we have a 19 month old....we also spend about $400 a month just on gas.
Are you kidding? $350 a week AFTER bills are paid?
DUH!
Of course I could. All that stuff you listed that you've spent so far is extras and can easily be cut.
Secondly, there's no reason to spend THAT MUCH MONEY on maternity clothes. Even If I had that much left over per week after bills, I couldn't force my hand to spend that much on maternity clothes. I'd go someplace cheaper (like Old Navy), or find something from a secondhand baby boutique.
This isn't a budget problem for you guys, this is a self control issue.
It would be hard while maintaining our current social life because so much of it is dining out and going to bars with friends, but other than that -- OMG yes. I mean, nobody needs 90% of the things that you spent money on this week. That doesn't seem like a deprived budget AT ALL.
But this is subject to what jilybeans noted... it might be tough once you factor in that once a year we take two cats to the vet, and sometimes we need to buy wedding gifts for friends and such. Those weeks would be tough.
before i clicked on your post, i was trying to figure out the math because i thought you meant $350/week INCLUDING my mortgage. but just in spending money? absolutely. i see that you mention that you live in a HCOL area, and i know my area is probably much, much L-erCOL, but i think it would be easy to live on half of that.
i agree with the pp who suggested going to a cash system to control your spending if it's hard for you to live on this much. it will help tremendously, because once it's gone, it's gone!
$17 for 2 shirts? That actually seems cheap to me. I have to dress up for work also.
Oops!
I didn't see the space there. I thought it was $172
I am assuming you are including your rent/mortgage in the "bills" category. We live in a HCOL area and do live on about this amount excluding rent/utilities/insurance etc.
We almost always eat at home, buy clothes used or on sale, and I get my hair cut at a beauty school (some don't like this but it works for me).
If you don't mind my asking, do you have any debt and if so approx. how much?
Btw, kudos to you for taking responsibility for your money in order to prepare for baby.
Married August 2009
3 years. 5 losses.
Our rainbow baby boy born 11.16.15
I need at least 80.00 a week for gas, lunches out and misc.
DH needs 150.00 ( he has to pay for parking and has a much longer commute)
We spend 80-100 a week on groceries, toiletries and prescriptions.
Then there is stuff like oil changes, dog food, dog meds, gifts, ect.
I think it would be very tight for us if we tried to live on that. We would have to cut lunch out at work, our grocery budget, and any fun money from our weekends ( like going to a fair, out to eat, or a movie).
Do you eat lunch out every day? Not that there's anything wrong with it if you can afford it, but packing a lunch isn't really a horrific sacrifice if you get in the habit.
Germany 2012
You're freaking out because the bought t-shirts for $9 each?
probably. but we haven't tracked our spending very closely in over a year (due to me being a very time-consuming grad program without a summer break).
xoxo,
not really MM
I could easily do this. You spent a lot of money.
Yes, we usually spend much less than that.
Except for my fun money on Starbucks, I rarely spent money M-F.
Wives Unscripted