I don’t know if this is the place to do it. But looking @ peoples budget is something I love to help people with, so here’s what I’m seeing in yours ..

Your husband brings home $2300 a month – $1897 in bills = $480 left.

Here are a few thoughts – the $180 phone bill? I’m not up-to-date on where you live, but we live in a med/small town and pay $50 a month for nationawide long distance any-time service – I’d check around on that bill — you would cut that down over $100!!

Also, your electric & gas total $325 a month? We have a 1500sqft home and we spend about $200 a month on our utilities. We keep our Ac at 80 in the summer and heat at 70 in the winter. I hang clothes in the summer when I can, we also use fans to circulate the air, we use energy-save bulbs & cut the AC/Heat down/up further when we’re out of the house. I would say you could maybe cut those bills down.

Even without cutting those things out, you still have $480 a month left. Even if you keep out $35 a week for “spending fun money” (that’s what we use) you have $340 to spend a month.

You could take $200 and put back in some type of savings – an IRA/401k, or a money market or something if you do already have those.

This doesn’t even include your pay. You could take 1/2 your pay and put it back for “emergenies” and part for b-day/Christmas and if you have any left add to the savings.

And just to make you feel better, I am a SAHM that makes a little extra money a month babysitting (about $300 mth) and my husband makes about $50k yr (that is BEFORE taxes) and after taxes, medical/dental/life insurance and 401k he doesn’t bring home much different than your husband. We do not have a car payment, but we have a higher mortgage payment and we have put back 6 months income in a savings for emergencies, and have an education account for our daughter, a Christmas club, and an IRA for me, plus we will pay our mortage off in 9 years (a total of 15 since we bought it)

We are very frugal and watch what we spend, and we still have fun, we’ve just found ways to do it on a budget – It’s worth it to say at home for me!

I have been a stay-at-home mom for the past year, a decision made with rising gas prices in mind since my job was a commute of almost 40 miles a day each direction and the cost of daycare also being high. I have three children: 15, 13 and 4.

I worked as a graphic artist for a local newspaper for several years, and also still currently teach classes as an adjunct instructor for our local community college outreach. (I usually teach 2 classes per year at $400 per credit hour which works out to $1200 gross per semester if we get enough students to have the class.)

I am currently enrolled in college to obtain my bachelor’s and then master’s degree in an education leadership program online.

My husband has worked in construction, making enough money for us to pay our living expenses and allowing me to stay home. Currently, however, he is working at a salary of $35k yearly at a local mill (processing organic flour and other organic grains). He has no college degree, but would love to return to school to obtain a teaching degree (as an art teacher).

We are currently living in a small (1200 sq. ft.) home that we are trying to purchase at $35k. We have a 2001 F150 we are still paying for at $380 per month. Our utilities run $130 for gas, $195 for electricity, $35 water, $40 trash (quarterly).

Our phone bill is about $180 per month, give or take a few dollars. Our rent is $400 monthly.

We have some medical bills that we pay about $100 monthly on, two credit cards that we use and try to pay off each month (one with a limit of $300, the other $750 – we are using these to raise our credit score and buy things we would normally buy with cash or debit cards for ordinary expenses) and our auto and renter’s insurance costs are $87 monthly.

We try to keep our grocery bill as low as we can around $300-$400 monthly.

My husband’s take-home pay is $1150 bi-weekly.

I am not a financial aficionado, but even I can see that saving money is not an option for us right now. We try to reduce our expenses as much as possible. We rarely buy extras. We don’t eat out or go to the movies.

We will be having some big expenses coming up soon… school clothes, supplies and tuition for three kids. I don’t know how we’re going to buy them clothes for school without using credit cards, and taking several months to pay that debt.

Supposedly everyone can save money…

So, any advice or solutions? I doubt any of you money savvy people will be able to find any extra money in our budget, but I didn’t think it would hurt to ask.

If you start working at 25 and retire at 65 and save 125 bucks a month and get 6% interest then you could have almost a quarter of a million bucks in the bank just by saving a little more than 4 dollars a day.

-ech87

My personal philosophy tends to expand upon this as I think life is far too short not to have more pleasures. Although not all of them take money – most do. I believe in Abundance NOT Scarcity and will cover this in my ‘Philosophy and Science of Wealth’ blog in the next few weeks.

Growing up poor, with a burning desire to escape, the only way out that I was taught was through the aggressive pursuit of wealth and status – basically by getting as much education as I could, from the best schools I could, and going for high-income professions (i.e. the traditional become a doctor, lawyer, banker, or business owner if you want to succeed financially). In order to do that, I rationalized working extraordinarily long hours in super-competitive environments, spending years in school, borrowing huge sums for education, moving to a high cost city, and taking some significant business and career gambles to attain bigger and better financial rewards.

Today, I have pretty much achieved most of the financial goals I set for myself, and while still in my 40′s. But, the fact is that to continue living the high-octane, big-city life-style we enjoy, I still need to work, and not just work, but work pretty hard. In part, it is a choice – I truly do love the excitement and challenge of my life. I could easily retire today to the simple life, not that I could even begin to understand how to live on $25K/year like CA Dreaming. But, I feel that I’m only now beginning to tap my own professional and business potential.

And that is the trap inherent in doing it my way, and the reason I’m so interested in hearing about people who’ve chosen a far simpler path to financial independence.

Someday, I may just join you when I’ve had enough of the rat race.