We often talk about our grocery budget on here, but I was wondering if it was too nosy to ask about the other misc. expenses. What is your budget for those? I mean everything but bills (mortgage, utilities, phone, etc.) and groceries. I'm wondering if I'm being too stingy with ours or if we possibly spend too much. We have a little more flexibility in our budget now that DH just got his annual raise - we are putting away $450/month towards savings (this doesn't include $ we put towards retirement...but we have to rebuild our efund after a few emergencies this past year.), but I don't know if we should stick with that or allow ourselves a little more cash for the random things that come up.

I know this varies depending on how much you drive (and what vehicle you drive), how many kids you have, the COL in your area, how much you eat out, etc. But I was just curious.

We spend ~$450/month on everything. (We spend ~$300/month on groceries.) We are a family of 3. That $450 includes gifts, doctor co-pays, gas (we drive civics, but we still spend ~$90/month on gas), eating out (rarely), post office, clothes (rare), random gadgets that DH wants or needs for school, etc. And if we go over on our groceries, it spills into this. (BTW, I know many of y'all have envelope systems...we don't have one at this point.)

The problem is with the gadgets I mentioned. If DH sees a hard drive for $50, when it's normally like $250, he is dying to buy it. But that eats up a large portion of our spending money. So, we are trying to establish a gadget fund for him to avoid me getting stressed over it. I can't decide if it should come out of our $450 or out of the money we put towards savings. Like, say $50/month.

Thanks! Sorry this is so long-winded!

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Michele

Mommy to Jack (06/01/06) &
^Bernadette^ (entered heaven at 37 wks on 10/17/07)

http://myobaby.blogspot.com

I understand your position. That is exactly why we use a sort of envelope system. I don't like a large hunk of unallocated money after the basic bills are paid. It is too tempting to just use. And then the unexpected comes up. You could just call it emergency money, but a new gadget isn't really an emergency.

I have every paycheck split into as many categories as makes sense for us. Like twenty. My husband has a computer budget that is currently very low because our needs are elsewhere. I only put $25 a payday into it. He has to pay all upgrades, software fees, ink etc out of it. Normally it would be about double that but other things are more important now.

So I think out everything like vacations, maintenance, new tires, memberships, magazines and throw something in every payday. Sometimes it is a WAG(wild ass guess) but at least I thought about it and put something away. And sometimes I have to shift money between them when new information or problems come up. It is the thinking through that is the important part and putting money aside.

And getting hubby trained to say "How much do we have for..."

Cathleen

I would say to go with an "allowance" for each of you seperatly, like $50 a month. He can buy his gadgets and you can buy whatever you would like. I would leave the $450 alone, for family expenses and then have personal expense money for you and dh.

The rest of the stuff I have a bigger grocery budget but I then include a lot of other stuff in that. So I need new shoes and I get them at costco with my groceries and they fall into this category. Gifts for others alway have a set budget. We just try to make the times we do make un needed purchases rare.
We try not to spend a lot of money on other things. Doing the cash Allowance thing for us meant the money would diasapear and we wouldn't know where it goes.

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Kimberly Proud Mommy to Bethany Rose April 2006

Yeah, we have a "fun" category that everything else gets dumped into. Gas is separate, usually less than $200 (hubby commutes).
We probably spend less than $200 on "other" things like clothes, doctor, unexpected expenses like gifts or photo developing. I think the budget is $50 or $100 though.

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It's not what you make; it's what you spend.

Wow, $200! That's awesome!

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Michele

Mommy to Jack (06/01/06) &
^Bernadette^ (entered heaven at 37 wks on 10/17/07)

http://myobaby.blogspot.com

$400 for everything ~ including groceries.

I am not sure how to answer this one. I just get things I need with the grocery money, so it comes from the grocery/gas fund. We don't use an envelope system, but I have $100 per week for EVERYTHING... groceries, gas, doctors, misc fun like bowling or roller skating, any necessary purchase (DD needed shoes this week) or any other expense that might come up.

I spend between $150-250 on groceries per month.

I spend between $100-150 on gas per month.

Doctor copays and prescriptions costs are included in the grocery money, as are most other expenses. Things like photo developing, clothing (when needed or a good sale), birthday gifts (these are rare as we usually buy things on clearance for our 'gift tote') and eating out (which is once or twice per month).

So I have $400 per month that has to cover gas, groceries and ANYTHING else that might come up. There are some weeks when I don't even go to the grocery store because of other expenses...doctor copays and prescriptions take a good part of our money as the girls are sick quite often. We've spent about $150 on older DD's meds and Drs in the last 3 weeks alone. I just stock up on food when I have the money and sales are good, and then I can go a week or two without going to a grocery store at all. DH just picks up milk or misc on his way home from work at those times.

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My son and I rarely have an unneeded purchase. Probably the only thing we spend money on is when we make a trip to the thrift store for a "new" truck or when we go to the dollar tree for water balloons. DH's gadgets include hardware for his homemade computers, etc. And his hobby/grad work is in wireless network security, so he checks the internet for good deals. (often he gets them FAR) I *rarely* buy clothes for DH and me.

So, I'm not quite sure why our spending budget is so much higher. This month, I bought a gift for a friend's 2 kids. Her one son has been in the hospital for 3 months. I bought $25 worth of gifts + $8 shipping. I went over on groceries b/c it was my turn to do snacks for our moms group at church. DH's dad came into town, and we treated him to lunch. Those little things add up, I guess. But there was a point where we couldn't afford any of this, so I feel like easing up a bit is not necessarily a bad thing for us.

I've established an envelope system and will cross my fingers it works. I decided to give DH $50/month for his fun money, so that should relieve much of the stress when he tells me what he wants to buy.

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Michele

Mommy to Jack (06/01/06) &
^Bernadette^ (entered heaven at 37 wks on 10/17/07)

http://myobaby.blogspot.com