Comments on: May’s Spending Report

By: Renee

Renee — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:54:11 +0000

I saw this and thought you might be interested:
http://lifehacker.com/397855/costofsmoking-calculator-motivates-you-to-quit

By: Myrna

Myrna — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:29:02 +0000

If you only spent that little on cigarettes, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to quit. I sure hope you don’t smoke in front of your son.

By: Tricia

Tricia — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:22:35 +0000

Joy – with my cigarette spending, it is so low because I roll my own. I started doing it about 5 years ago to save money and I haven’t gone back to regular cigarettes.

By: Tricia

Tricia — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 15:20:51 +0000

Hi Esther - We do not own our house outright. Please see my FAQ for more about that (the info is near the bottom in the Q&A section.

By: Esther

Esther — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:12:08 +0000

I don’t see a line for mortgage or rent. Do you own your house outright?

By: mar

mar — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:01:37 +0000

I wonder if it would help to post your grocery receipts. The food category is always so high for such a small family.

By: Ryan@Debt Reduction Formula

Ryan@Debt Reduction Formula — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:43:10 +0000

Good job for keeping your expenses so much lower than your income.

Your car fuel expense looks similar to mine. I work from home and my wife doesn’t work. So we drive very few miles.

On the other hand, we do drive a minivan, which doesn’t get great gas mileage. But what else can you do with three kids?

By: Joy Smith

Joy Smith — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:44:57 +0000

Wow. You make more, I spend less yet we’re still broke by the end of the month. I wonder why that is. Well I do know our mortgage payment is higher. We spend $610 a month for our mortgage. We also spend more in cigarettes. About $18 a week to be exact. How do you manage to spend $18 a month? Ur groceries run us about $80 a week for a family of 4. Insurance is included in my husband’s job, so we never pay that out of pocket. Our water bill runs about $50 a month. I think I will sit down and compare to see why we are spending less, but broke. Thank you for sharing this with us!

By: Tricia

Tricia — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:22:56 +0000

Mike – yeah, that concerns me. This winter we went pretty bare bones. I’m not sure how much lower we could go.

Joe – information about my mortgage is in the FAQ that I posted a link to. Rest assured, most of my mortgage payment goes to interest at this point in time so you see most of it in my expense report (under interest expense). Only about $35 goes towards the principal each month.

Jim – I am only contributing 1% right now. I almost cancelled my contribution all together, but decided to stay at the 1%. My problem with retirement is that I don’t know much about it and I don’t really understand what is happening to the money that I put in. Once I understand it, I would probably feel better about it. I need to get cracking. I have a book sitting on my shelf just waiting for me to dig into.

Eva – May was a less stressful month. There was a good week where I didn’t smoke as much. Plus, I roll my own and have cut back on the amount of tobacco in each cigarette. Basically, when I smoke one, I am only smoking half. The goal is to eventually taper way down, but stress sets me back every time. I haven’t figure out a way to get through it without cigarettes yet.

Jill – thanks for the tip!

Danielle – I did hear about it, but haven’t looked into the specifics yet. Financial troubles can affect anyone, I guess.

By: danielle

danielle — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:42:19 +0000

Tricia, you are doing great. I was wondering if you heard about Ed McMahon? His home was forclosed!

By: Jill

Jill — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:36:43 +0000

In the future if you are looking for t-shirts, try Michaels crafts. They are usually on sale for 2.50 and are good quality and they have a lot of colors.

By: Eva in TX

Eva in TX — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:40:21 +0000

Way to keep the cig. expense lower than average! Hope this means you’ve been able to taper off. You may think you spend a lot for groceries, but it doesn’t seem so outrageous to me. The great thing about you is that you are willing to fix the majority of your meals at home. I struggle daily with this because I loathe cooking.

By: Anne

Anne — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:31:02 +0000

Joe — if you look at the FAQ, you’ll see that she addresses the mortgage there. (I had the same question!)

By: Jim ~ mydebtblog.com

Jim ~ mydebtblog.com — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:15:44 +0000

I think it’s amazing over half your income can be applied to savings or debt. I’m curious how much of your income you apply to retirement? If you have stopped contributing I’m sure you’ll be able to make up the difference once your debt is gone and your EF is where you feel comfortable. I have been contemplating if it’s worth it to stop retirement for a year or two in order to pay off debt, and then fire it back up full force.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:09:13 +0000

Wow. I am happy to see that you can save so much of your income. 59% savings rate for the month is great! One thing I noticed is that for me, mortgage payment is biggest budget expense and I cannot find it (or rent) on your budget. Do you have alternative living arrangement to not have any housing expense?

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:28:39 +0000

Trish,

Just another reminder – natural gas prices are up dramatically this year over last year. You probably won’t notice the increase in rates until the next heating season, but you should be prepared to pay anywhere from 30-50% more this next winter.

And it could still get worse…