How much is your BASIC monthly 'nut'?

mortgage/rent, car/insurance, healthcare.utilites etc

Tell us how many in your family!

I can live on $800/month....no entertainment or luxuries (Igamoo & me)

The biggest drains on my pocketbook are the car (my interest rate is laughably high), the electric bill, and daycare/summer camp/whatever I'm going to do with the little one.

I'm so jealous--good for you! :)

1 bedroom in D/T Denver with no car. My phone/ISP are $75/monthly. Utilites are included in my rent.

And believe me, I don't live in a glamorous place. Tiny and old.

between unemployment and child support. Needless to say, that isn't enough to live on.

$115 a week IIRC, and back then I still had house payments and a car. I was unemployed for 5 months. Of course, I do not have kids, but I did have two dogs. They do not cost near as much in food and clothing though. House payments were $220 a month. I am so glad I found a decent house for $35K.

Even though I live at home, that's not enough. Of course it probably doesn't help that the kid's Dad perpetually a couple of months behind on his child support. :grr:

You must be buying a car. That's probably more expensive than a kid (okay $200 a month plus insurance, the kid's health insurance is probably more than that, except at $500 a month isn't medicaid possible?). I had some huge luck there - to find a good job within walking distance. I am not sure, in our society or my town, how safe it would be for a woman to do what I do - walk and bike to work in the middle of the night. I have seen a neighbor lady walking past where I work on some nights. However, she is with a 70 pound dog so that probably helps.

My big expense is groceries. The kid and I shop and eat separately from my family because they don't keep track of what we can eat. Other than that I have my cell phone bill, the cable internet bill (though my sister says we'll split that while she's here,) my son's health insurance bill and gas and maintainance costs for my car. Oh, and random household stuff like trash bags and dishsoap when I notice they're needed.

I live in a 3 bedroom house so utilities & insurance are my biggest expenses.

I can live comfortably on $600.

Just me here.

wer are in the 1,000-2,000 dollar range...

1. Mort-$780

2. Car Payment-$320

3. Insurance-$120

4. Electric-between $50-100 a month

5. Internet/Phone-$45 dollars a month

6. Water Bill-$112 a month

7. Credit Cards-roughly, $100 bucks, split between three cards...

roughly, 1,552 bucks a month...not including gas/food/or the ocassional propane fill. Our total take home, is on an average of 2,000 a month, give or take a hundred or two...i'm a sub teacher, and summers are a bit rougher, cause i'm not working.....things are rough, gas is the biggest pain, because we now have to look at gas, as an additional bill, and not just an irritant...with my wife carpooling, we spend...hmm, about 90-100 per two weeks of work...but that is cut in half, we pay for half of that 90-100, and her cousin pays the other half...so its not as bad, but its still a ...well, a fucking pain, for lack of a better word. And to talk about trying to save money? Yeah, right, not under the W economy...

shoot me into the $2 - 3K range, nearer $2K.

I basically have no debt. I pay less in mortgage and homeowner's fee than the average rent around here. Insurance is about $350.

whatever is left over goes for better quality food.

Netflix and cigs are my only splurges.

to share a room in london, not including food. Just rent, bills, travel, phone, student loan.

Grrr.

n/t

Rent + Utilities = 200$
Food = 120$
Beer + Smokes = 150$

1750 mortgage & escrow
450 car payment
500 college tuition
450 doctors
525 rent(son in college)
350 food
450 utilities
4025 total

We'll have one year when my daughter, son and wife are all in college, at least my wife gets reimbursed for each class.

And here I thought it was my daughter always asking for cash for frivolous things like lunch money.

And I live fairly modestly. Have been for 3 years now.

I am in a mobile home park and pay lot rent of $309 per month, which includes water and garbage pickup, so I don't have any mortgage payment.

It is certainly a cheap way to live! :hi:

and have no payments other than lot rent.

300 bucks a month would buy you a nice lot of your own.

A lot of municipalities won't allow you to have a prefab home (i.e, trailer) on a residential lot, because they think (erroniously) that it looks "shabby" or will degrade the property value.

$275 = rent (utilities included)

$50 = internet

$50 = phone

$50 = TV

$50 = food

$0 = healthcare (no insurance)

------------------------------

(I do not count the following as "monthly bills" as I do not pay them monthly!)

Auto insurance = $460 a year - paid every 6 months

Home insurance = $350 a year - paid at once

Gas for car = purchased too sporadically to calculate as a proper "monthly bill"; with my driving habits at today's prices about $40 a month (I ride a bicycle as often as possible).

for food...are you a bird?

I've been that way for years - I just can't force myself to eat when I'm not hungry. :shrug:

You can't possibly eat enough nurishment to sustain life on $50/month.

Really, I've been this way since I was a teenager! I'm not underweight or anything. I weighed 130 lbs. last time I checked.

I just live by myself and don't eat much - a couple sandwiches a day is all I need!

I don't see how people can eat 3 full meals a day. I'd feel bloated and uncomfortable if I did that!

It's nice to know that DUers care enough to inquire about each other's health! :)

(I do feel kinda isolated living here in Houston without a whole lot of money to get around).

I wish I was that lucky. I look at food and gain weight. As long as you are healthy thats the important thing.

and that doesn't include groceries and other necessary expenditures. Just mortgage, cell phone, credit cards, car payment and utilities

It's tough, but I've managed. I don't have a lot of luxuries, but I would never live without my DSL or satellite. If I eliminated them, I could probably live even cheaper. But life would certainly not be worth living.

seems to eat up a good bit of cash. I remmber the days when we lived in a group house and the rent was less than 100 bucks per month. The good old days. That's why there should be AT LEAST a living wage in this country.

Live in a tiny apartment, don't drive much, still barely eeking by... thanks to student loans (too bad I can't find a professional job, eh?!).

which interestingly is just a little bit more than my take-home pay. So, we starve for a couple days every month, and if anybody gets sick or if there's any emergency of any kind, we're just plain fucked. Oh, and we stopped paying for things like car insurance and luxuries like that a long-ass time ago. God bless America! I love indentured servitude! And persistent unemployment (speaking for my significant other). And the challenge of poverty! It really just makes me feel alive.

$1275.00 for rent (It's 1,000 euros- I live in Spain)
$130.00 for utilities (Usually from 95 - 110 euros)
$351.00 for car payment
$118.00 for Insurance
$140.00 for cable/internet/telephone (About 110 euros)
$350.00 for food/baby stuff
$135.00 for gas
$125.00 for credit card payments
$100.00 for cell phone (About 80 euros)
$75.00 for drycleaning of uniforms


Damn, my life is pretty freakin' expensive.

we payed off most of the mortgage, and all of our home equity loan...and we own our car outright.
with property taxes, insurance, utilities, food, ours is under $1000.

Here's my breakdown:

Rent, utilities and internet (all lumped together and paid to the landlord -- Rent $800, utilities $115, and internet $20)

$935

Car payment
$500

Car insurance
$100

Gas
$80

Food
$300

Meds
$75

Landline phone
$25

Cel phone
$80

So total is about $2100... and it's just me. *sighs*

Not including food/household goods/clothes/gas, etc, about $1500-1700. There are five of us.

We cannot pay our bills for under $5,000 a month - OMG, even typing that makes me cringe. (We need $6,000 to be able to purchase gas/food/entertainment and 'surprises').

Thats about the average. 1 person. No car payments, no other debt besides mortgage.

Add another $400 for food/gas/stupid stuff per month.

about 2.5 weeks worth of rent.

I think I'd be screwed with much less than $2500...and I'm single.

Rent: $845 (includes heat, water, and sewer)
Electricity: usually $20
Phone and fax: $29 (with Vonage)
Cell phone: $10 a month (prepaid)
Back taxes: $200 (long story)
Credit card payment: $200 (stupid car repairs and dental bills, or I'd be free of this)
Health insurance: $272
Car insurance: $60
Gas: $40 (I fill up once a month)
Gym membership: $25 (as long as I go 8 times a month--it's an arrangement with the insurance company)
Cable and Internet: $110 (unfortunately, I need broadband for my work, and all the channels I like are on the expensive tiers, and I refuse to get DSL or anything else from those lizards at Qwest.)


$1811

It's my Grandparents' rental and I am very grateful for living here.

The biggest portion of that is our mortgage. We have no other debts (though in a few years we'll have to start repaying student loans), we don't go out to restaurants or movies or on vacation. It's a pretty lean budget, but our one extravagance is the cable (expanded basic + internet).