How do you calculate your budget?
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How do you calculate your budget?
| Thu, 01-29-2009 - 2:18pm |
If you have seen my other posts I am just getting a handle on my debt and $$ situation, so please be gentle :)

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It sounds like you are trying hard and that deserves a lot of credit - congrats for that!
Some of what you spend on grocercies depends on where you live, but here are my thoughts.
1. Don't rush the 16 month old off formula to milk (although she sounds like she is at the right age!) The nutrients in it are worth the extra money in my opinion.
2. My husband and I and our dog (we count her food in our grocery budget) spent $400 a month on food. Her food is $35 a month. This also includes things like soap, laundry DT, paper towels and shampoo etc. So in my opinion if you are feeding a family of 5 on that you are doing great.
3. One thought would be to keep the receipts for a month and add them up - this will give you a good estimate of what your family needs to spend; then I would set it up with your husband so he automatically gives you !/2 of the monthly grocery money on a set day - asking is hard I agree - and this way he can plan for it rather than just whatever he has in his pocket.
4. My husband and I will often get one or two "treats" when we go shopping - Oreos
What I did when coming up with a household budget including our groceries, pet food, toiletries,cleaning supplies, etc was to go through my pantry and freezers and make a list of Everything we buy and then price it out (I'm pretty good about figuring the cost of items we buy on a regular basis) and then look at how often we buy them whether weekly (breads and fresh vegtables), monthly (canned goods, frozen and toiletries), and every 2 months (cleaning supplies)
Ohhh good job with little ones!
We have a family of 4 - two teenages and 2 small dogs.
I think you need a personal checking account of your own. If he wants to handle the bills then just have him on each payday deposit so much into that checking account. Get your amounts together. and sit that husband of your down and say Honey I need this much to budget a month and
Those percentages are pretty good guidelines, thanks for sharing them.
One thing is that lower income people will have higher percentages to food, medical
Thank you,
I am goig to sit down with DH and try to get this settled.
Hi Marie,
We are a family of four also (two teenagers too), and I think it's just great that you can keep your food budget down to $550 a month. Jeez, I was pretty proud of myself for keeping it to $1000 this month. I am slowly
I too think $400 / month is pretty low considering you have to factor in formula and food for four (baby excluded here since you are his/her food).
My thought on the formula is this - have you seen/tried that "next step" formula for kids 12-36 months? My sister who has a 15 month old who is resistant to straight milk mixes in one scoop of of the "next step" formula with milk. My nephew drinks that like a charm. Just a suggestion.
Hmm meals are something we struggle with, but we love to cook.
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