Monthly Income?

[eliza61]

I can't believe people pay those prices. My homeowners' insurance is a little over $1000/year (and my house is 50% larger than yours), and my property taxes are around $900 -- but I have a house here in the city and 40+ acres in the country on which I plan to build my retirement house. Admittedly, we have a farm discount on the country land.

It's all what you are use to. I'm a big city girl, I'd fall on a sword before ever getting near the country or 40 acres.

We plan on retiring to a big city. right now the top runners up are Philadelphia, Washington DC or Charleston SC.

My property taxes are 10K a year and I'm betting that by the time we retire (hopefully in maybe 7 years) our taxes will be close to 1000 bucks a month. We only have 7 years left on our mortgage so that will help. but would I trade the city for lower prices in the country. Nope.

Its just what we love and what we are use to.

 

[hsmamato2]

I think it's good to know these numbers,just in case....and plan accordingly as far as savingx 6 month cushion.... haven't read whole thread yet- but in my scenario I'd cut it down to bare bones for what we have NO CHOICE but to pay for,which is about 1800 per month,b/c we have a car payment right now. That is for ongoing bills,etc that we have already incurred,and have to continue paying.
non essentials,in this plan don't exist b/c they're gone.
no cable, no extras, 35.00 per week for groceries....

 

[hsmamato2]

My taxes alone are $1400 a month plus mortgage on top of that. I would say minimum $5000 a month and that is bare bones.

yikes- those are some taxes!

 

[Dizisfun]

Yes, the house is mortgage-free (I mentioned that in a later post)...we live in a high tax area (historical 1765 farmhouse 25 feet from a river so water views) so we do have that, and insurance and upkeep.

I also updated to say that my bare-bones budget would be $908, not $800 - I COULD do $800 but I don't want to cut out some things that make life nice - my pets, internet and phone.

I do not have children (that probably really helps with cost!) - we live on 3 1/4 acres so we try to grow and can our own food as much as possible. I have hens for eggs.

But I also tithe 10% of my income and have heat expense (live in Maine), which is included in the $908.

Right now we have more than that monthly (maybe twice as much) and life is comfortable. But I do know I'd be perfectly content with under $1000.

Sorry. I should have read further. I do see now that you said you are mortgage free. That's awesome.....And yes the fact that you plant your own garden I'm sure is a big help to you. I would like to be able to plant a garden. It's a lot of hard work and I can't manage to keep house plants alive.

 

[nunzia]

I figured it out with our normal expenses, but not much in cash for the month. Keeping cell, internet, satellite and phone, but not including DVC dues, we come in at $1,400 a month..the biggest set bill of that is health insurance. We are debt free so this is just utilities, insurances and 600 month for gas and food. Could probably do less, but feel that is realistic. I may be put on part time because of finances where I work, so I've been playing with numbers quite a bit.

 

[Colleen27]

I would like to be able to plant a garden. It's a lot of hard work and I can't manage to keep house plants alive.

Don't let that stop you... I have a fabulous vegetable garden outdoors but the only houseplant that has survived more than a few months in my care is an apparently immortal aloe vera that lives on my kitchen counter.

I figure from the $100ish I spend on seed and plants in the spring I get about $1000 worth of fresh veggies, some of which I can or freeze for the winter when grocery store produce is super-expensive. We also eat a lot healthier as I get really creative in using up whatever I have an overabundance of that year (there's always something, and it seems to be different every year).

 

[Nomad70]

$5000 monthly.

 

[ekatiel]

Since the OP mentioned not cutting cable or phones out, I tallied up just bills and it came to $3100. This includes heating oil and car insurance which are not monthly bills but are calculated to monthly average. This does not include any maintenance on cars, clothing, or any variable expenses that do not happen monthly. Includes only the monthly utility bills, mortgage, gas, groceries, etc.

Anything extra we spend in either expenses or luxuries come from overtime pay or extra overbudget of my wife's paycheck.

Those saying $1000/month, our gasoline for getting to work would be 60% of that number already. Groceries would be the only thing covered under that $1000 and we buy little snacks and even raise our own beef in the family.

It would change here in a few months as the car payment will be finished and this will be the first time we've ever been without a car payment. From here on out, it will be saving up and buying used cars in cash since both cars are new enough not to have one needing replaced after the other is paid off. Then again, that doesn't fall into this thread because there wouldn't be any money to save to buy a car.

Sayng all that, no one could survive on anything laid out in the way of this thread because there is always something that happens. Kids need clothes, houses and cars need maintained and repairs. You go crazy having 0 fun and luxuries.

Ours is about the same. $2900 in direct withdraws from our account each month (we have everything on direct withdraw, so mortgage, utilities, students loans, one car payment, cable, internet, etc). I figure we'd need about $1,000 for gas and groceries, so that puts us at $3,900. If we need to pay cobra, that's probably an extra $1,200 .

 

[disneychrista]

$2500 with no savings or additional princial payments on my mortgage. $2300 if we cut out TV & Internet.

 

[dd53]

We are a family of 10. We could live on $4000 without getting rid of anything. If we really needed to scrimp we could probably get down to $3200 but any lower than that would be a problem.

 

[indimom]

These threads (here and the Community Board) have really intrigued me. Some of these numbers are amazingly low. I decided to pull up last year's budget on the computer and go over just our necessary expenses.
We spent $41,000 last year on (not our income, just what we spent):
Mortgage
Electric
Water and Gas
Phone/Internet/Cable
Groceries and Gas for the cars
Household expenses (paper products, cleaning supplies, shampoo, etc.)
Auto insurance, tags, repair and maintenance
dental
home repair, maintenance and insurance
medical
orginazational dues and fees (for work)
pet expense
property taxes
school expenses
vision

Our medical and dental (not counting premiums which come out before I start calculating) were almost 20% of that total amount. The mortgage, taxes and insurance were 25%.
This included none of the extras: clothing, haircuts, gifts, eating out, entertainment, etc. The only things we could cut on that list were the cable/internet/phones and the pets. We could trim the gas and groceries some also. And I suppose we could let maintenance go until something started to fall apart on the house or car. OR, we could try to sell the house and get a cheap apartment. But, really, that's what we would need to maintain our status quo.

 

[2disneyboys]

Keeping everything the way it us today we budget $4800. Now, if we were out of work or something like that, we would cut off ALOT of "fluff" and could get by on about $3000 but I couldnt imagine having less than 3k a month, and we don't live "fancy". We are in coastal Virginia and a family of 4 and 1 dog.

 

[ZehnJahren]

I can live on 1800; that includes all food, rent, electricity, and fun stuff like tv and internet. If I had to, though, I'd cut out the fun stuff and then would be around $1600 a month. I live in a major city (high rent) and carry a good amount of student debt, though - but I only have to pay for me, so that keeps other costs low.

Currently, I'm trying desperately to figure out how the heck to cut back on groceries. I pretty much eat all fresh foods, and man they're expensive!!

 

[tink_n_pooh]

I think our number is around $4000. We are a family of 3 with one dog in rural NJ.

 

[irishsharon]

$3100.00 would cover our mortgage and taxes and that's it

Same here and thats for a three bedroom ranch

 

[4HOLIDAYS]

Tax, Ins and Mort payment alone is about $2700. with no car pays but all else, i'd say we could get down o about $5200. Our electric alone is $450/mo on avg. This would get rid of savings, sat, minimize phone plans, ...this does not include health ins-it's paid thru the business.

 

[LSchrow]

Same here and thats for a three bedroom ranch

that's long island for you
as much as we love the island with its great communiities (and seriously, some of the most friendly people!), beautiful beaches, quaint towns, nearness of NYC with its plethora of shows, museums, shopping, etc....taxes are incredibly high (average homeowners' taxes in our area are over $1K a month).
once we add in utilities, mortgage (ours is a small refinance - about $1K mth), home/auto repairs, pets, HO ins, one auto loan & ins on 4 cars, etc, health/dental ins & bills, $4-5K a month would be conservative. we haven't any CC debt (we try to adhere to the "don't buy it unless we can afford it" theory - medical bills almost got us a few times, but we paid them off monthly).

it is sad that so many young locals can't afford to live here, near their families and long-time friends, once they are adults

 

[Pigeon]

I thought this question was sort of internally inconsistent, such that there's no way to give any sort of accurate answer.

If I'm looking at a "bare bones" amount, it would by definition include cutting out things that are part of our normal monthly bills. We have regular bills for things like music and dance lessons for the kids, Netflix, etc., that would be cancelled if we had to cut costs. We'd spend less on lots of things.

The other huge issue is medical insurance. I have good insurance with a fairly reasonable premium. If I was doing "bare bones" because I'd lost my job, I'd have to pick up private insurance and my costs would skyrocket.

 

[threeboysmom]

$3000 seems to be the average amount for me in NH for "bare bones" as long as I'm careful about what I spend for gas and food.

If I HAD to, I could probably cut even further and get it down to $2500, but that's really pushing it for me. That would mean only using gas for commuting, no extra trips, and absolutely no fast food whatsoever. And I could drop my cable if I HAD to... but that would only save $35 since I've cut down to basic already, lol.

 

[goodfood4ursoul]

OT...My DS and I joke about never wanting to live in Halifax because every time there is a weather bulletin in our area (central NC) it always mentions Halifax so we decided you must have the worst weather there

It does seem like the areas near the NC/VA border experience a higher percentage of potential tornadic activity

We live in the other end of the county (an hour away) which doesn't seem to have as many storms.
Halifax is a big county, closer in size to your Wake Co, but with the population of your Scotland Co.