Can we talk BUDGETS?

[jamijoy]

This was interesting as I'd never looked at our budget in percents before. I did have fun organizing it into Excel. :001_smile:

 

This is out of net income...

 

29% Mortgage (We pay 4% of our income extra per month.)

15% Me (I go grocery shopping and get gas and the rest I use for random stuff...eating out, Target, etc)

13% Giving

12% Car Payment (We pay 5% of our income extra per month.)

6% Investments

5% Hubby (Mostly gas but also lunches out, uniforms, etc.)

4% Savings (We also put in money from deployments and use this for bigger non-budgeted things...extra-curriculars, vacations, holidays, major curriculum purchases, dental co-pays, car costs, etc.)

4% Utilities

3% Debt (Student Loan & CC)

3% Phone/Internet/Netflix

2.5% Car/Home Insurance

2% Life Insurance

1% Pool

0.5% Dental Insurance (No kids are in braces. Yet. :scared: We're planning to use the car payment money for braces in the future. Yikes.)

 

100% Total

 

We had said before that we'd only pay cash for our vehicles. That was until my a/c went out early this year in my 11 year old Dodge-something-breaking-every-month-Durango SUV. We had just moved and used a huge chunk of savings on our house down payment so we decided it'd be worth it to take out a loan for the car and be rid of the old one. We switched to a mini-van (something I thought I'd never do) and I love it. :001_wub: I still wish we could have paid cash, but it is nice not to have a car breaking every month. (Seriously, like every month for five months in a row.)

[A.Balaban]

FWIW, my DH makes under 22k a year. We just moved into a more expensive apartment & DH's work schedule just changed, too, so within the next month the money will increase BUT the job has never worked out for more than one-two months so we do not count on that money....

 

Rent:43%

Electric Utility: est. 3%

Gas Utility: est. 3%

Home insurance: 1%

Car insurance: 6%

Car payment: 11%

Gas: Varies

Debt: 25%

Home Phone & Internet: 3%

Entertainment: (Hulu+/Netflix) 2%

Cell Phones: 8%

 

Total: 105%

 

Plus gas, which varies greatly. Over the summer he was barely working so we did not spend a lot on gas.

[AndrewsDK]

According to Quicken for 2012 so far:

 

Charity 19%

Groceries 16%

Interest Expense 12% (on the mortgage)

Gasoline 8%

Entertainment 4% (lots of swim lessons this year)

Travel 4% (just visited family, woot!)

Dining Out 4%

Chicken Coop/supplies 3.5% (those are some pricey chickens!)

Homeschool & books 3.2%

Other 22%

[Heather in Neverland]

Wow, this was really fascinating. Some of you listed categories I hadn't thought of but it is areas we still spend. No wonder I couldn't figure out where the rest of our money was going. :glare:

[FaithManor]

Based on net-pay:

 

12% housing

7% utilities - electric, phone, internet, and some propane for our back-up heating source

 

1.5% wood for heating

13% Food

13% gas for cars, car ins. one car payment, registration, and maintenance

2% guitar lessons

5% 4-H membership and projects

10% charitable giving

2% rocketry team

2% clothing

.6% pets

2% money sent to a relative in need and will extend through 2013

2% Health Savings Account

 

= 71.10%

 

20% to savings

 

8% for curriculum, vacations, entertainment

 

Faith

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

Darn it, this thread has me really wanting to figure the percentages out, but DH's income is so variable, I don't know how! Even when he looks at what he expects to bring in this year, by the end of the year, the amount has always changed (usually in the wrong direction :glare:). How do people with variable incomes do this? It's one of the most frustrating things about budgeting for me.