Couple of observations. I am the sole earner in our house. I am fortunate that I make about $140k and we live suburban Texas. In our family of 4 our basic expenses are as follows.
Mortgage is $2100/ month
Homeowners insurance $400/ month
Property tax $200/month
Car insurance $185/month
Electricity $250/month (average)
Natural gas $40/month
Water+trash $200/month
Internet $90/month
Streaming (disney/netflix/audible) $45/month
Groceries $400-600/month
Gas $200/month
Toll roads $50-100/month
Cell phone $200/month
Coffee once a week $40/month
Date night food (once a week) $500/month
Fucking health insurance for the family is $750/month (my contribution, my employer pays the majority)
Roughly $6250/month give or take.
We don’t have consumer debt, no car notes, no child care (stay at home parent cares for the kids) no daycare, and no paid child activities.
That is just our fixed expenses, something always comes up so obviously there is more but its inconsistent.
My car is a 2019 wrx that was $30k we paid it off last year but the note on that was $470/month. I couldn’t get that car for that price today.
We have an older suv for my partner and I have an old pickup that sits unused unless we need to make a hardware run, those vehicles are paid for, no loans and have been for 10+ years.
Our last house was purchased for $191k in 2016 and we sold it for $295k this past year.
Our insurance went from $1200/year to $4800 per year on that house before we sold it. Similar thing with property taxes.
Unless you have managed a 10% return or salary increase, your money doesn’t go as far as it used to.
I am happy to pay my fair share of taxes. For what I am paid, I feel like its reasonable to contribute more in taxes based on my earnings, but as a result, my take home is obviously not $140k. So when you figure fixed expenses are ~$75k, plus my 401k contributions, savings for my kids college fund, and incidentals for stuff like car tires, birthdays, christmas, house repairs, medical expenses, etc, its relatively easy to eat up the remainder of that pool.
Bc for real I live in Massachusetts (suburb, but closer to Providence than Boston)…and my mortgage is the same as yours, but that is including property tax and homeowners insurance.
There’s a fair bit of luck in that though…we bought in 2018, and refinanced in 2021…
Our house has increased in value, nearly double since then…so we couldn’t afford to move to a similar house in the region if we wanted to. We’re kinda stuck here now. Many of our neighbors in the same boat.
We could afford to take a significant downgrade in terms of neighborhood and home size. That would probably cost about the same as we have now.
We bought our new place in June of this year. Its a proper suburb. 30-45mins to downtown. Greater Houston area. Our new house is basically the median price, under 3000sqft with a decent back yard but nothing special. Its in an older neighborhood and it needed work when we bought it.
We purchased our first house in 2016 for 191 at 3.25% interest with 3.5% down. Homeowners insurance was like $1200/year. sold it this year for $295ish and homeowners insurance on the same house was at $4800/year. Bought our new house in June of this year for $425 at 6.7% interest and put 80k down (part of the equity we had in the old house we used for the down payment and the rest we put in our savings/emergency fund because I don’t have faith in the booming economy right now).
If I were starting out again where I was in 2016 (i.e. same salary as I made in 2016 but today), I would not be able to buy my old house. Its crazy.
I personally feel like we are due for a reconning on all this, the house prices, insurance, and property taxes are not sustainable. The market is starting to reflect that too.
When we were looking at houses, there were several that had been on the market for over a year because they were overpriced by 20-30%. Our old house was not worth 300k to me, it was to the market and the buyer but the people who bought and lived in that neighborhood pre covid are different than the new buyers and that isn’t a good thing imo.
What would Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey say about this extravagant internet connection you’re using right now? And did you eat today? Just expense after expense with you.
The mortgage usually includes the principle, property tax, and the interest (also mortgage insurance too if you have that). Why do you have them all listed separately?
That’s how they get you to justify a $1200 phone every two years…by charging you $30/mo for it and a $20/mo promo credit as long as you stay a customer with them. If you switch you gotta pay off the full balance.
Imo that’s insane. I’ve always considered myself a technophile and I don’t replace any of my tech on that kind of a schedule, except for my phone…and that’s mostly out of wear and tear and not being economically repairable.
But I’m still out of that ERP game. Better to buy outright when there’s a good deal from the OEM with a OnePlus or a Pixel. Even better if you can find a $50 eBay phone that’s worth a $200-$300 trade-in credit.
I’ll have to look into it. Last I checked, att, tmo, and Xfinity were all about the same for a 2 line unlimited plan. We talked about doing google fi a few years back but they were limited on devices.
HEB means you probably saved 40% on your grocery bill each month. If you had to shop at Publix in Florida your monthly would be $1000+/month. Your insurance might also be double on both car and home.
HEB is significantly more than Aldi where we do most of our shopping. We do a HEB trip roughly once a month or every other month to get the stuff Aldi doesn’t carry.
I was explaining this to my neighbor on a fixed income, that it costs over $6k a month to run my household, she looked genuinely confused for a second as she runs her life on about 1/30th that cash. What’s awful is we’re still going in the hole and I’m just using my 403(b) to collect my employer match so I can cash it out regularly and pay off expenses. So no savings is occurring.
I’m sorry to hear that. I was there 3 years ago on a smaller budget. I thought we were in a decent spot financially and then we had our first kid (planned) and my partner stayed home with our baby. Our income went down by roughly a third overnight and we had a $10k delivery bill and all the other new baby stuff. We burned though our savings in about 9 months even though I was working. I almost opted to sell my car but I was very fortunate to find a new job making about 30% more and we recovered. The stress in that situation is immense and I hope you find a way out.
Thank you, yeah I took a $30k pay cut into my current job after being laid off for 5 months, which destroyed us. Now I have to figure out how to consolidate and secure all the debt so we can get enough credit to consolidate and secure all the debt :) Hoping for a reversal like you, glad you found it.
Bruh, what? Mine is $2000 for two cars. Full coverage on both, and both of us have spotless driving records. Not even a single parking ticket in over 15 years (since we both started driving). My car is $1200 per year, and my wife’s is $800. Her car is 3 years older than mine.
FWIW, my area (North Texas) is notorious for bad drivers and uninsured drivers. Even if my driving record is spotless, the rest of the idiots on the road make my premiums go up.
My bad, its $185/month, just checked. The drivers, comprehensive coverage, my old truck, wife’s old suv, and my wrx. Progressive was cheaper by a significant margin vs state farm.
AH, 3 cars would do it. I saw you mentioned the WRX which I know is a “risky” car. But I was like, dang I haven’t had those prices since I was a 19 year old with an accident on record.
Yeah, clean record for 8+ years I am older than 35. Its gotta partially be the area. We got a homeowners insurance quote on one of the houses we looked at, regular house, $400k price, they wanted $16k per year in homeowners insurance… Not in a flood zone, no historical damage, no extra risk factors.
In suburban texas, you’re probably getting hit by the uninsured drivers bit, even if you’re not actually getting the uninsured drivers coverage. The area is just bad in regards to the amount of drivers on the road without it.
The car are all fully paid for and have been for a while. Only one gets driven at a time and my commute is about 5 miles. The collective value of the cars is less than 35k. Other than my wrx, the others have 250k+ miles.
I won’t argue on the house, I will also say I don’t really care. We aren’t strapped for money, our needs are met, we contribute to savings at a good rate, and when interest rates drop we will refinance the house which will free up ~$600/month or we will reduce the loan term. Our interest rate went from 2.25 to 6.7 percent when we moved.
Its real easy to say "your house is too big’ without knowing anything about where someone lives or their circumstances.
$30k was an expensive car… 10 years ago. The average price for a new car topped $50k last month. $30k in my area would maybe get you a used car, probably two or three years old from a car rental company dumping old inventory with too many miles. The used car market still hasn’t calmed down after the component shortage that nearly halted new car production a few years ago. And since used car prices are still astronomically inflated, new cars can sell for whatever the hell they want and they’ll still have wait-lists.
Covid and post covid, used cars are insane. When I bought that car, I could have gotten a 2 year old version of it with 70k miles on it for 27k or a new one for 30. The loan was 0.9% so it didn’t make any sense to get the used one.
You should have read the rest, the car is paid off. You can do that if you are responsible with your money. That new car that I bought in 2019 was because I was driving 40k miles per year for work at the time and I needed something reliable after my last car started showing its age and left me stranded a couple times. It had 175k miles on it when I sold it after having 3 water pumps, 2 thermostats, 4 high pressure fuel pumps, a radiator, several cooling hoses, an oil cooler, and a clutch replaced, all done myself. The mid 2000s minis were not reliable cars out of warranty.
Couple of observations. I am the sole earner in our house. I am fortunate that I make about $140k and we live suburban Texas. In our family of 4 our basic expenses are as follows.
Mortgage is $2100/ month
Homeowners insurance $400/ month
Property tax $200/month
Car insurance $185/month
Electricity $250/month (average)
Natural gas $40/month
Water+trash $200/month
Internet $90/month
Streaming (disney/netflix/audible) $45/month
Groceries $400-600/month
Gas $200/month
Toll roads $50-100/month
Cell phone $200/month
Coffee once a week $40/month
Date night food (once a week) $500/month
Fucking health insurance for the family is $750/month (my contribution, my employer pays the majority)
Roughly $6250/month give or take.
We don’t have consumer debt, no car notes, no child care (stay at home parent cares for the kids) no daycare, and no paid child activities.
That is just our fixed expenses, something always comes up so obviously there is more but its inconsistent.
My car is a 2019 wrx that was $30k we paid it off last year but the note on that was $470/month. I couldn’t get that car for that price today.
We have an older suv for my partner and I have an old pickup that sits unused unless we need to make a hardware run, those vehicles are paid for, no loans and have been for 10+ years.
Our last house was purchased for $191k in 2016 and we sold it for $295k this past year.
Our insurance went from $1200/year to $4800 per year on that house before we sold it. Similar thing with property taxes.
Unless you have managed a 10% return or salary increase, your money doesn’t go as far as it used to.
I am happy to pay my fair share of taxes. For what I am paid, I feel like its reasonable to contribute more in taxes based on my earnings, but as a result, my take home is obviously not $140k. So when you figure fixed expenses are ~$75k, plus my 401k contributions, savings for my kids college fund, and incidentals for stuff like car tires, birthdays, christmas, house repairs, medical expenses, etc, its relatively easy to eat up the remainder of that pool.
How suburban in Texas?
Bc for real I live in Massachusetts (suburb, but closer to Providence than Boston)…and my mortgage is the same as yours, but that is including property tax and homeowners insurance.
There’s a fair bit of luck in that though…we bought in 2018, and refinanced in 2021…
Our house has increased in value, nearly double since then…so we couldn’t afford to move to a similar house in the region if we wanted to. We’re kinda stuck here now. Many of our neighbors in the same boat.
We could afford to take a significant downgrade in terms of neighborhood and home size. That would probably cost about the same as we have now.
We bought our new place in June of this year. Its a proper suburb. 30-45mins to downtown. Greater Houston area. Our new house is basically the median price, under 3000sqft with a decent back yard but nothing special. Its in an older neighborhood and it needed work when we bought it.
We purchased our first house in 2016 for 191 at 3.25% interest with 3.5% down. Homeowners insurance was like $1200/year. sold it this year for $295ish and homeowners insurance on the same house was at $4800/year. Bought our new house in June of this year for $425 at 6.7% interest and put 80k down (part of the equity we had in the old house we used for the down payment and the rest we put in our savings/emergency fund because I don’t have faith in the booming economy right now).
If I were starting out again where I was in 2016 (i.e. same salary as I made in 2016 but today), I would not be able to buy my old house. Its crazy.
I personally feel like we are due for a reconning on all this, the house prices, insurance, and property taxes are not sustainable. The market is starting to reflect that too.
When we were looking at houses, there were several that had been on the market for over a year because they were overpriced by 20-30%. Our old house was not worth 300k to me, it was to the market and the buyer but the people who bought and lived in that neighborhood pre covid are different than the new buyers and that isn’t a good thing imo.
I’m just impressed by the groceries. Our family spends twice that much but boys do eat a lot.
Dude my boys are 6 and 9 and they eat like I did when I was 16-19 and a lineman.
Idk where it goes.
My kids are young but yeah, that cost is going up with groceries and them growing. Its impressive how quick you can eat money.
And all these rich jerks saying if you stop paying for streaming services you’ll be rich too
Don’t forget about my one $7.70 coffee per week. That’s what is the issue.
What would Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey say about this extravagant internet connection you’re using right now? And did you eat today? Just expense after expense with you.
Dave Ramsey would call
youthem* “lazy” and then proceed to tell people he doesn’t “do lazy.”Is that before or after he demands you set aside way too much money to tithe at church each week?
The mortgage usually includes the principle, property tax, and the interest (also mortgage insurance too if you have that). Why do you have them all listed separately?
You can escrow them or pay them separately. Ours is separate. Our last house was an escrow account all lumped together.
That makes sense
Why pay $200/mo for cell service when companies like Mint and Cricket exist? You could be paying under $200/yr for that alone.
$200/mo likely includes equipment repayment plan.
That’s how they get you to justify a $1200 phone every two years…by charging you $30/mo for it and a $20/mo promo credit as long as you stay a customer with them. If you switch you gotta pay off the full balance.
Imo that’s insane. I’ve always considered myself a technophile and I don’t replace any of my tech on that kind of a schedule, except for my phone…and that’s mostly out of wear and tear and not being economically repairable.
But I’m still out of that ERP game. Better to buy outright when there’s a good deal from the OEM with a OnePlus or a Pixel. Even better if you can find a $50 eBay phone that’s worth a $200-$300 trade-in credit.
I’ll have to look into it. Last I checked, att, tmo, and Xfinity were all about the same for a 2 line unlimited plan. We talked about doing google fi a few years back but they were limited on devices.
HEB means you probably saved 40% on your grocery bill each month. If you had to shop at Publix in Florida your monthly would be $1000+/month. Your insurance might also be double on both car and home.
HEB is significantly more than Aldi where we do most of our shopping. We do a HEB trip roughly once a month or every other month to get the stuff Aldi doesn’t carry.
I was explaining this to my neighbor on a fixed income, that it costs over $6k a month to run my household, she looked genuinely confused for a second as she runs her life on about 1/30th that cash. What’s awful is we’re still going in the hole and I’m just using my 403(b) to collect my employer match so I can cash it out regularly and pay off expenses. So no savings is occurring.
I’m sorry to hear that. I was there 3 years ago on a smaller budget. I thought we were in a decent spot financially and then we had our first kid (planned) and my partner stayed home with our baby. Our income went down by roughly a third overnight and we had a $10k delivery bill and all the other new baby stuff. We burned though our savings in about 9 months even though I was working. I almost opted to sell my car but I was very fortunate to find a new job making about 30% more and we recovered. The stress in that situation is immense and I hope you find a way out.
Thank you, yeah I took a $30k pay cut into my current job after being laid off for 5 months, which destroyed us. Now I have to figure out how to consolidate and secure all the debt so we can get enough credit to consolidate and secure all the debt :) Hoping for a reversal like you, glad you found it.
Surely there’s some significant expenses you can cut.
What vehicle insurance do you have that is 260 a month in insurance? I have two cars both fully insured and I am paying 800 a year TOTAL.
Bruh, what? Mine is $2000 for two cars. Full coverage on both, and both of us have spotless driving records. Not even a single parking ticket in over 15 years (since we both started driving). My car is $1200 per year, and my wife’s is $800. Her car is 3 years older than mine.
FWIW, my area (North Texas) is notorious for bad drivers and uninsured drivers. Even if my driving record is spotless, the rest of the idiots on the road make my premiums go up.
My bad, its $185/month, just checked. The drivers, comprehensive coverage, my old truck, wife’s old suv, and my wrx. Progressive was cheaper by a significant margin vs state farm.
AH, 3 cars would do it. I saw you mentioned the WRX which I know is a “risky” car. But I was like, dang I haven’t had those prices since I was a 19 year old with an accident on record.
Yeah, clean record for 8+ years I am older than 35. Its gotta partially be the area. We got a homeowners insurance quote on one of the houses we looked at, regular house, $400k price, they wanted $16k per year in homeowners insurance… Not in a flood zone, no historical damage, no extra risk factors.
In suburban texas, you’re probably getting hit by the uninsured drivers bit, even if you’re not actually getting the uninsured drivers coverage. The area is just bad in regards to the amount of drivers on the road without it.
Wouldn’t surprise me. At least the state is not using paper temp plates anymore. Its the one good thing they have done in the last 20 years.
Your house is too big and you own too many cars
The car are all fully paid for and have been for a while. Only one gets driven at a time and my commute is about 5 miles. The collective value of the cars is less than 35k. Other than my wrx, the others have 250k+ miles.
I won’t argue on the house, I will also say I don’t really care. We aren’t strapped for money, our needs are met, we contribute to savings at a good rate, and when interest rates drop we will refinance the house which will free up ~$600/month or we will reduce the loan term. Our interest rate went from 2.25 to 6.7 percent when we moved.
Its real easy to say "your house is too big’ without knowing anything about where someone lives or their circumstances.
Thank you for sharing. I’m curious why the water bill is so high, is it due to less water being available in Texas?
They lump trash and water together since the city provides them. Water bill is like $40 by itself, trash and recycling make up the rest.
Yeah, I saw that $30k for a car and immediately dismissed everything this person said. I’ve never in my life paid more than $8k for a vehicle.
30k is not and expensive car. You’re doing great buying used, but that’s a low price for a decent new car.
$30k was an expensive car… 10 years ago. The average price for a new car topped $50k last month. $30k in my area would maybe get you a used car, probably two or three years old from a car rental company dumping old inventory with too many miles. The used car market still hasn’t calmed down after the component shortage that nearly halted new car production a few years ago. And since used car prices are still astronomically inflated, new cars can sell for whatever the hell they want and they’ll still have wait-lists.
Covid and post covid, used cars are insane. When I bought that car, I could have gotten a 2 year old version of it with 70k miles on it for 27k or a new one for 30. The loan was 0.9% so it didn’t make any sense to get the used one.
You should have read the rest, the car is paid off. You can do that if you are responsible with your money. That new car that I bought in 2019 was because I was driving 40k miles per year for work at the time and I needed something reliable after my last car started showing its age and left me stranded a couple times. It had 175k miles on it when I sold it after having 3 water pumps, 2 thermostats, 4 high pressure fuel pumps, a radiator, several cooling hoses, an oil cooler, and a clutch replaced, all done myself. The mid 2000s minis were not reliable cars out of warranty.