Total amount spent on bills each month

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
Total amount spent on bills each month
45
Wed, 11-23-2005 - 10:39pm

Hi everyone! I just have a general question...no answers are needed if it's too personal.

What is everyone's monthly "outgoing" number? I'm including everything in mine, all debt and other expenses. I don't even own my own home yet!

Right now, mine is about $1900.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-27-2004
Sun, 11-27-2005 - 11:36am
For bills only (not groceries, gas, etc...) it is usually around $1,900-$2,000. Although with heating cost on the rise now I have a feeling it's going to be towards the higher end for a couple of months now.
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 11-27-2005 - 5:24pm
Lurker here. Do any of you use Quicken or Microsoft Money to keep track of your money? I have for the past five years and thought everyone's numbers sounded very low. So I just ran a report for our finances for the last 12 months and I came up with $8500 per month. Now believe me we do not live "high on the hog" as it might sound from this large monthly figure but it does include EVERYTHING. The following is a list of our 12 mos. totals per categories for our family of three DH, DS-Junior in college(whom we pay almost everything for) and me: 3 Autos-Fuel,Repairs,Insurance,Regist.,License- $10600, Clothing-$3700 (and I do a lot of thrift stores!)Charity-$3000, Food (which includes beer/wine and eating out which we do very little of)-$7500, Health-$2500, Birthdays&Christmas-$5000, Household Maint.-$2600, Utilities-$3000, Vacation-$1500, Phones,postage,etc.-$1500, Recreation(golf,sporting events,books,computer stuff,newspapers,all the things that entertains us)$5200, Mtg.-$19200 and the biggie, College-$22000 (no loans, saving and paying cash as we go). There is still some spending not listed here such as haircuts $1200, life and homeowners insurance ($1000) or 403B retirement (which we contribute $800 per month) for example.
Our income is about $110,000 per year broken down:DH-teacher/coach/bartender-$88,000 and me waitress/bookkeeper-$22,000. As you can see we have no credit card payments or debt (other than our mortgage which will be paid off in 2 years) and our three cars are all paid for so I'm always amazed at how you all possibly do it.
iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
Sun, 11-27-2005 - 5:42pm

I think the disparity between all of us is 1) income 2) number of family members.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Sun, 11-27-2005 - 6:12pm

I hadn't posted before because I do zero-based budgeting so I'm always going to spend everything we bring in on paper. Whether or not all that spending is absolutely necessary is another question....for example, I budget 200 for our target debt where the minimum is actually 130 but on paper....that 70 is gone. O.K. here's a closer comparison to your numbers...

2 autos versus 3-this is a family thing, we have 2 small kids so I'm sure our insurance is lower, 1 of the cars is older and given to us so minimal property tax, etc.
Clothing-I budget 600 a year for a family of 4. DS is mostly clothed by hand-me-downs from a cousin, DD is given clothes for Christmas and birthday from my in-laws and the rest comes from garage sales, I'm given hand-me-ups from my college aged sister and have minimal dress clothing, DH wears freebie t-shirts from tournaments and takes up most of the clothes budget
Food-3360
Health-I have no idea. This is a deep, deep hole for us!
Birthdays & Christmas-1500
Utilities-2400
Vacation-2500

I'm a SAHM who teaches part time for about 4,000 a year. DH coaches college debate for around 43,000 a year but also does camps in the summer for an additional 5,000.

I'm embarassed to admit that we don't contribute to retirement and should. We have student loans, 1 car payment, 1 second mortgage and some CC debt.

How do we make it? On a wing and a prayer I think-we've had to cut back and do without a lot of things that I wish I could have/do. Some things like vacation should probably be given up and we just haven't faced that. Some days like today when I sick and miserable and just want DH to pick something up for dinner (he doesn't cook) it's a pain in the rear but I keep in mind all the success stories I've heard and look at all the blessings we have in terms of hand-me-downs, freecycle, etc. and know that we will make it out.

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-05-2004
Mon, 11-28-2005 - 7:50am


It might be your area of the country and it's average cost of living that is making the difference. We live in the Southeast, and the cost of living here is very low, compared to what my family pays up North. My same house....which cost me $156K to buy, would have cost me 600K or more where I grew up. When my parents are considering a large purchase, they wait until they come to visit us, buy the item down here, and then drive it home 14 hours to their home. The way they look at it, they were planning to visit anyway...so if they can get a good deal near my house, they'll jump at it. :-D

Pat :-D

Avatar for cherfer
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-11-2003
Mon, 11-28-2005 - 8:04am
I don't own my own home either. But my bills are $2,719 a month. Pretty terrible, huh?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 11-28-2005 - 8:32am
Thanks for your detailed answer, I appreciate it. One item I notice is your feeding a family of four on $70 per week. How do you possibly do this? Does it include cleaning supplies, diapers for the small children, toilet paper/paper towels, etc.? If it doesn't where is this figure in your budget? Please----I'm not attacking anyone, I'm just trying to figure out if people truly account for ALL of their spending. To me, it's the "generalization" of how much we spend on the "other" stuff that really impacts our finances. If you look at my previous post the reality is that my entire income (which is a net figure by the way) goes totally to my son's college education! This equates to me working for five years to pay for one child to go to a in-state school. I say five years because his major requires 18 credits a semester to graduate in four years and he's not able to handle that many classes with his running CC and track which he got a scholarship for. So another words it takes five years for one person to work 30 hours per week (without student loan interest which would make it even more expensive and take much longer to pay off) for one college education. I don't like this fact but it's a priority my husband and I have made to get our son off to a good start in his own life. How is a college graduate (if he graduates at all under the financial pressure) supposed to pay a bill like that after graduation unless he gets a fantastic job which are few and far between! I just think people MUST look at every single dime coming in and going out to get a better handle on their finances. Sorry if this sounds harsh to anyone, JMHO and I want to get people thinking.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2000
Mon, 11-28-2005 - 10:05am

Ours is between $5500-$6000, but that includes everything. We are a family of 10 at the moment and we have a special needs child that requires alot of time on the road! Sometimes depending on the month it may be a little lower or higher! We do have some extras like cable, cell phones, lawn care services (summer only) and internet. We pay off our credit cards monthly also. I'm amazed at how low some of the numbers are in this post. I do not live in a high cost of living area either!

Donna

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 11-28-2005 - 10:43am

Happy to answer-I've been on the frugal living and shoestring budgeting boards for years and have worked on the grocery budget throughout that time-

My grocery budget includes food only. I have a $100 household budget for items like toiletries and diapers. I use cloth diapers for my youngest. My oldest has encopresis (serious constipation issues) and requires pull-ups for school and at night which comes out of the 100. I cut my son's hair, mine gets cut about 2x per year and DD and DH goes every other month or so.

In terms of the food budget specifically-

DH travels almost every weekend so those are times when I feed 3 people not 4 which is nice. The downside is DH is addicted to eating out!!

DH is a vegetarian. Beans and rice is pretty high on most lists of vegetarian meals. The kids and I are not so I buy whatever meat is on sale and we'll eat that on weekends. I don't serve meat by itself always in a casserole or other dish where you use less.

I do not buy cereal unless there is a terrific sale. I cook large batches of waffles, pancakes, etc. and freeze.

I use only powdered milk in my cooking so our milk budget is cut.

I pack DD's lunch for school each day, the rest of us usually eat lunch at home or DH might take a brown bag to his office. His schedule is a little strange but this works for us.

I'm a serious Aldi's shopper. I do a major shop once a month for items that we use consistently and then on a weekly basis pick up perishables and any sale items at the more expensive grocery stores.

We do have some splurges-I drink a Coke each day, DH also drinks soda, we buy all whole wheat pasta and breads to help DD's constipation.

At some point, I also looked at the cost of each meal I make to determine if we could afford it and that made a big difference.

I no longer use paper towels-my children manage to ruin enough clothes to provide rags for a lifetime not to mention wornout cloth diapers. I haven't given up on toilet paper though!

I have mixed feelings on the college education. Oh, please don't get me wrong DH & I just seem to keep going and going. He's a college professor and I'm finishing up my doctorate. I know the statistics say that a college education equals a higher paying job and I agree with that but I worry that we're making the assumption that everyone should go to college. I have students in my classes every semester who are either not interested in obtaining a college education but the parents are pushing it or they are not capable of doing the work (I'm not saying this is your child!) There are jobs that require technical school or no college and sometimes those are the better option. I also see student after student who takes out much larger student loans than they need and I have no idea how they will ever pay those back! In our case, that payoff of school seems a long ways away....DH has 4 years of undergrad (full ride), 2 years of grad school for the master's (teaching assistantship so no tuition but you don't make much) and it took him 4 1/2 years to do the Ph.D. (3 years was covered by assistantship which paid tuition and then we each made around 12,000 to cover living expenses) so 10 1/2 years of school during which he made very little to put towards retirement or other savings and people often assume that now he makes a good salary but realistically in our field and in the Midwest starting salaries are 38,000-43,000 a year. We left school after 3 years to finish writing while DH was working. You are required to enroll each semester including summer and out of state graduate tuition for the 1 required hour is 500 so that was 1,000 each semester for 5 semesters. OUCH!

Taleyna

Avatar for cl_beckymk
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Mon, 11-28-2005 - 12:03pm

Don't feel bad, I'm in the higher amount.