Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Normal Expenses

To follow Debt Defier's, a writer at Happy Rock, post regarding his expenses; here are my normal expenses for a four week period.

Savings $40 a week (160)
Savings for Tuition/Pool $90 a week ($360)
Babysitting $100 -not normal
Cleaning $160 (that was for two weeks)
Auto Insurance $200
ATM Withdrawals $100 (varies)
Credit Cards $1300 (no financing)
Church Donations $500
Groceries $600
Mortgage $1200
Snowball Payment $1000 (250 per week)
Water $50
Electric / Gas $300 -seems really high
Cell Phone $100 -would love to drop this one lower
DSL $ Phone $100

debt defier July expenses

3 comments:

The Happy Rock said...

Wow that is quite a list. All those expenses and still $1000 a month towards debt. Here are my quick reactions:

What is on the credit cards each month that isn't in the other categories?

All of your utilities look quite high. Cell phone is huge, I know we pay $140 for two phones for the year.

You should be able to call and haggle your phone and internet lower by threatening to switch, or just switching to get a better deal.

We pay $100-150 a month for gas and electric and $30 for water.

Auto insurance seems high, we pay about $80 a month total for two cars(one has no comprehensive)

Motherhood101aplus said...

@Happy Rock. Thanks for the evaluation of my expenses. The credit card breakdown for July is the next post and my March credit card expenses were listed earlier.
The home phone used to have two bills that I consolidated into one company for local and long distance. I will continue to reevaluate that one.
I would love to decrease the cell phone expenses. As I recall from your blog you are using a prepaid phone.
Not sure how to get the gas/electric down. That is a budget plan so we pay the same amount each month.

Lucy T said...

I was doing some catch up reading of your posts and saw this entry. The cleaning costs caught my eye. I've been cleaning for about a year, just one or two small jobs a week. My little one just started fullday K so I am getting more serious with the number of jobs I want to take on. My DH and friends tell me I should charge more, but I think my prices are about average for the area. Would you take a look at my site www.lucytascone.com and tell me if you think I am competitive or off on my prices. Thanks.