Hellobee Boards

@Bao: And I agree, you have to have a little fun! At least you are saving regularly, as there are many who can't do that.

After household bills, minus the credit card, I have 840 to play with. Usually a chunk of that goes towards the credit card depending on how much we spent that month 100 goes into savings the rest is play money. Usual end up with 300 in the account by the end of the month. I have no idea what DH'S finacial situation is like. I know between the 3 savings combinded we end up saving at least 300/ mo. We have both joint and seperate accounts. We would have so much more if we would stop eating out & buying expensive lattes lol.

We spend our 'fun' money as we go, so it's hard to tell. We probably eat out once or twice and do some clothes shopping every month. On a good month we can put away $1K into savings, but that hasn't happened in a long time!

@Bao: I don't know off hand since our budget is on DH's laptop, but we are definitely closer to your amount! We don't have much to spare but try to allow a little so we can have some fun money too.

It depends on the time of year. We try to max out our 401K as early in the year as possible, so we have a lot less leftover between Jan-April. The remainder of the year, we have a lot of money "leftover" at the end of the month. This will be changing, though, as soon as we buy a new home because then our mortgage payment will probably be somewhere between $6-7K per month. Right now we only pay $2K for our mortgage.

Not enough! LOL I know that we are able to put in roughly $400 into our savings account each month (outside of 401k) We really don't track our "fun money" but I would estimate about $50/week

We were putting $1,000 into saving every other week. But now that we have a higher mortgage, utilities and buying stuff for the house, we haven't put anything in savings. We are covering two mortgages this month, till the renters move in. I hate.

Once we start day care, our budget is $1000 a month for savings. I hope that it works out how we budgeted.

We eat out way too much now. We don't have a set budget for fun stuff. I know it will change once baby is here, so that should help us save some money.

We are drawing down on our savings, while we invest in our business. In the meantime, we've cut back on all frills: no coffees, no takeout, etc.

We put $500 into savings and $50 into DS' savings. Fun money currently 1300 (it goes quickly); once daycare starts, about 800. Fun money includes eating out and random stuff from the store, but doesn't include groceries or gas.

@sooz: 6-7k mortgage? Wow!!! Mine is 2k which is a LOT for around here!!! Cant imagine!

@rainbowsprinkles: Tell me about it! The neighborhoods/cities that we're looking to move into are pretty pricey, but the schools are good, so we're biting the bullet and taking the hit. We live in the SF Bay Area and have contemplated moving to other areas of the countries where living costs are lower. Where do you live?

@bao: We're fortunate that my DH makes a pretty good salary which covers our living costs and then my income is used for savings and misc (vacations, splurges, gifts, etc). We also don't have any debt...we've paid off our cars, no credit card debt, no school loans. Also, I bet we're older than the average HelloBee, so more established in our careers and probably making a bit more money (i.e., we're old farts).

I'm not really sure, TBH. I like to have a 'cushion' in the checking account, so even though I could put more toward credit cards, I try not to let it get to a certain amount.

Before we were able to do that, I would say that honestly we didn't have any leftover because I budgeted every extra dollar to the credit card debt. But it was affecting our relationship negatively because we weren't doing ANYTHING - so I started to loosen up a little.

I think of it more as - we order out 1-2 times per month, once in awhile will order an on-demand video ($6, rip off!!), and occasionally will buy something we are coveting (like I just ordered a DSLR). But generally, we don't spend much! Hah, we did that enough a few years ago that we're still paying for it we've learned!