Comments on: Where, oh where, does our $exy money go?!

By: J. Money

J. Money — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:03:48 +0000

For sure, I like being open w/ all this money stuff – it’s fun :) I just REALLY need to update this as it’s kinda outdated now… and luckily it’s for the better!

By: Dawn Allcot

Dawn Allcot — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 02:30:20 +0000

Thanks for being so open and honest (as always) J!! Yes, we have a lot more in life insurance than that. There’s so much to think about with insurance w/ kids: college, daycare, (if something happened to one of us and the other still had to work, we’d need daycare), paying off our mortgage, etc. We also don’t have a lot of other investments (other than hubby’s 403B) to draw from so we wanted to max out the life insurance as much as possible. Sounds like you guys are good for double-income-no-kids though.

I’m now considering switching to DirecTV after the baby gets here… one life change at a time. LOL (Not that cable is a major life change, but you know how it is when you work from home… a few hours with no Web access can really screw you up!)

By: J. Money

J. Money — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 02:21:03 +0000

Hah! no doubt about that… damn good idea too actually.

By: Barry

Barry — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:30:04 +0000

I’ve always found it much more enlightening (yet maddening) to show all of your “paycheck expenses” like Federal Withholding, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, health insurance, as budget items. They are, after all, MAJOR expenses. Doing that, you’ll see that, like most people, you spend as much on taxes as you do on food and utilities combined.

By: J. Money

J. Money — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 19:50:56 +0000

i’ve tried calling those jokers and they just mess things up every time I try to get something done. once they left us without cable for like 3 days! just so i can get a discount… can’t stand them :(

insurance — we (my wife and I – no kids) have like $250k or $300k each. can’t recall of my head. i’m sure adding in kids def. raises it a bit ;) you’re probably good. I use USAA for everything – if you can get in there GO FOR IT! so incredible.

look for an update on this soon! i want to see what our numbers are looking like these days… i’m pretty sure they’re way lower ;)

By: Dawn

Dawn — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 23:23:59 +0000

Damn, I thought Optimum Cable was high. We’re paying $118/mos for phone/cable/internet.

Have you tried calling to see if you can get a deal? If you call and threaten to switch, they might knock down the price as a Triple Play customer (to the introductory rate). Unless that IS a deal.

Also curious (if you don’t mind revealing) how much life ins. coverage you have? We’re paying $150 a month, but we have 2 kids (well, we purchased w/ 2 kids in mind) so I guess we need more than you. I’m just wondering if we should have shopped around for a better deal on that!!

I like seeing your breakdown and noting that you don’t “skimp” on anything… you’re frugal, but not insanely so. You still eat out, wife drinks Starbucks, etc. etc.

By: J. Money

J. Money — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:13:49 +0000

@Jonathan – Hah! That was just MY portion ;) We pay about $2200 minimum every month – crazy, huh? I should actually update this again – soooo much has changed over the last 2 years.

@Kim – HOTNESS! That sounds like a most beautiful plan – good job :) Maybe I’ll see you around during our travels?

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 01:52:41 +0000

This is great! I went through a similar process to figure out how much money we bring in after taxes and where all of that money goes. My husband and I are saving up to quit our jobs and travel the world indefinately. We make average-people salaries and are saving $30K a year- it’s all about priorities!

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 02:00:58 +0000

Holy crap, you pay 1650 on one mortgage?? Please tell me that’s not the minimum…

By: J. Money

J. Money — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:49:52 +0000

It’s all in Excel :) I just took a screenshot and then played around a bit in Photoshop. If you have any photo/graphics software (you could google for some free ones out there too), you should be able to do pretty easily. Unfort. it’s not automated or anything, that would certainly be nice ;)