r/budget

2 adults in late 30s

1 preschooler, no pets

Racked up a fair amount of debt in our 20s due to both being in school and being frivolous with money. We started budgeting and working on everything when we were in our early 30s. Before 2019, I'd never created a budget before but started with a basic spreadsheet. I went back and looked at our statements and logged everything for the previous 3 months, then started logging every purchase and learning how to categorize and plan.

Overall, we probably had about 30k in credit cards/car loans and then 60k in student loans.

I made less during Covid and then stayed home for a year with our baby. During that time, we used a lot of our savings but didn't add debt.

We've slowly been putting money toward debt while still enjoying life with our young child. I find multiple financial personalities helpful, but don't stick to 1 way of doing things because I believe we all have to do what works for us.

We believe in being debt free, and that's our biggest goal (student loans, then mortgage). We also believe in having guilt free spending because this is our life now, and we want to enjoy it while still planning for the future. We are planning for retirement but aren't being aggressive.

As of right now, we have 0 credit card/car loan debt and about 30k left on student loans. The student loans will be paid off by December 2026.

We put 23% of our income toward the student loans.We put 10% into savings since we have a young child and don't have a full emergency fund. We could easily drop our loan payment significantly if an emergency arose. We put 45% to our fixed living expenses. We put 13% into retirement due to 401k matching. We do not want to miss out on that. The remaining 9% is what we spend guilt free. Travel, food, recreation, home updates. I don't feel like it's extravagant by our definition.

Income: 13.3k/month

Fixed Expenses: 45%

Student Loans: 23%

Retirement: 13%

Savings: 10%

Guilt Free: 9%

I feel like we've come a long way in about 7 years and am excited for what our 40s bring! 🙂

Making 22$ an hour. I feel like all my bills are low but somehow still unable to get ahead.

Rent 1000

Car 185

Insurance 185

Cell 25

WiFi 25

Food 600

Gas 180

I live in a city where they charge you once a month for gas and electric. When I first moved in no problem. We hit winter and I've had to call them and pay what I could. I just called to see what I owed so I could budget and the total was 99.64. Yay. I was able to pay the total. Yay me. I'm so excited. They will see how hard I've been trying. 🎉🎉

So my husband lost his job on Friday—not because he was fired, but because the company went through restructuring and changes. He’s getting about three more paychecks, which should carry us through May. He’s filing for unemployment today.

I’m not sure how much he’ll receive since he’s only been there for two years, but it should at least help us get through July.

The problem is that he’s been vaping THC nonstop for years. I told him yesterday that it can stay in his system for months, and most jobs test for it. He’s also a green card holder. He says he can find a job that doesn’t require testing, but I’m really stressed.

I feel like if he wants a good job—especially in this market—he’s going to have to stop. I woke up this morning feeling very anxious because I know that by June or July, we could be in trouble financially if he doesn’t find something.

If I cover everything myself, we’ll only have about $383 left each month. If I stop my 401(k) contributions, we’d have about $700 left monthly. I also have two paid-off credit cards with about $40,000 in available credit (not debt, just the available limit), but I don’t want to use them since I’m already paying off a third one.

Should I trust that he’ll find a job without drug testing? He just got laid off two days ago. Should I give him some time to breathe and figure things out instead of being hard on him about the smoking—and just play it by ear?

Should I stop contributions to my 401k now or wait or what ?

Long story short I have a few credit cards to pay off and student loans is the majority of my debt, I have roughly 30k which I hear isn’t as bad as most but I still hate owing money.

I make roughly 27 and hour but the nature of my job can be unstable because it depends on how many clients I can see in a week.

I want to start seriously saving money but still aggressively knocking out my debt. Luckily I stay at home with family at 24 and sometimes I beat myself up over it because people my age are living independently now. But I’m really trying to just start now and plan and just need some advice on how to start

Break down of debt

Bank of America- 1700

Cap One- 2700

Chase- 2300

Student loans 29,000

Right now I have a few hundred in a HYSA and less than 200 in an investment account although priority is getting debt free but still just need advice on how to still save I was thinking of getting an increase in my credit limit with my Credit union to make it all just one payment so it’s easier to keep track of where my money is going.

Been lurking here for a while and finally built the tool I always wanted.

• Net worth tracker with monthly snapshots
• Savings rate calculated automatically
• FIRE calculator: based on 7% returns + 4% withdrawal rule — gives you an exact date
• Budget tracker with visual progress bars
• Savings goals with projected achievement dates

Everything updates automatically when you log a transaction.

Happy to share the setup if anyone's interested.

So my husband lost his job Friday . Not because he was fired but because they did a reconstruction or something they did with company changes . He getting like three more paychecks which gets us to may . He’s filling unemployment today . Not sure how much he’s getting since he only works two years . But this should at least get us until July . The problem is hes been vaping non stop THC for years . I told him this yesterday how this going to stay in your system for months and most jobs test for this . He’s also a green card holder . He says he can get a job without testing for it . I am like stressing because if he wants a good job especially in this market he’s going to have to stop . I woke up this morning so stress . Because I know by June or July financial we fk if he don’t land a job . If I pay everything myself we have like $$383 month left . If I stop my 401k contributions we have like $700 left a month . I got two pay off credit cards each totaling like $40,000 I don’t want to touch because I am already a third one off right now .should I trust he find a job with no drug test ? He just got lay off two days ago . Should I give him room to breath and figure it out and don’t be hard on him with the smoking

And play by ear ?

Hello everyone, I'm a 23 year old recent grad with a MS who has secured a SWE position in a VHCOL area for around 135k base salary. This is my first properly salaried job so I've never needed to create a budget before, however I think it would be wise to instill some financial literacy preemptively instead of having to retroactively fix past mistakes. I would love some advice on how to improve upon my budget!

For some context, I have 0 dependents and plan on living with my parents for the first few months just to save effectively. I'm very fortunate to only be laden with 20k in student loans, which, given my high base salary, I was planning on paying off aggressively within the first 13-15 months despite 2.75 – 5.50% interest rates. I generally live frugally with potential aspirations to achieve FIRE in my 30s/40s, however this is not a hard guideline by which I abide. I like to enjoy things from time to time. My employer matches 100% up to 6% of my 401(k) contributions in addition to upwards of $1,000 annual contribution to a HSA. The position is hybrid with very limited time in office and the company offers pre-tax Transit/Parking Flexible Spending at $325/month each. I don't have a car so no car payments.

Within the first 4-5 months I would follow this budget:

• Income: $135k/year gross, $11,250/month
  • 401(k): -$2,042/month (I want to max out my contribution)
  • HSA: -$275/month (Also maxing out contribution here)
  • Transit FSA: -$240/month (I'm uncertain how much I actually want to commit since the public transit can be kind of expensive)
  • Taxes: ~$2,500/month (I would be paying non-resident taxes and get tax credit in my native state)
• Take-home: ~$6193/month
• Expenses:
  • Student loan payment: -$1,500/month (At this rate, my student loans would be paid off in about 13-14 months.
  • Discretionary funds: -$1,100/month (Stuff for helping my parents around the house, groceries/take out, hobbies etc.)
  • HYSA: -$3,593/month

After I have about $14,000-$17,000 of backup in my HYSA, I'd direct some of the saving funds to max out a Roth IRA for $7,500 of this year which should take about 2-3 months. After it's maxed out, I would go back to funding the HYSA, which should net me about $30k in a year. Granted, I may choose to move out earlier but I'll cross that bridge if/when I get there. I know next to nothing about the stock market/investing/bonds so I'll have to do a lot of research to build a proper portfolio. I've also heard I could diversify my savings and put maybe half of the leftover into a HYSA and the other half into a CD account. I would greatly appreciate some advice here too.

My main questions are whether or not my priorities are in line. On one hand, I feel like I'm saving quite aggressively with a high monthly student loan payment, however, I also feel like I should actually be investing more into my 401(k) since I begin work about 1/3 of the way into the year, missing 4 months of potential savings. Is it even worth it to max my 401(k) given I'm not debt free? Furthermore, because I've never made a budget before, I don't know if $1,100/month is enough/too much for discretionary funds. Not having to pay rent frees my budget significantly, however I don't think using my grad school spending patterns is a good barometer for how much I would need to support a new lifestyle. Thank you and I'm wholly receptive to any feedback!

Hey guys I would love some help on a budget. We are ready to buckle down and meet some goals. I’m going to list out income, debts, goals.

I would really appreciate if someone could help us make a budget that you would look at and be like “yeah that’s a solid budget”

Our take home pay combines is 6500 per month. That income is after our health insurance, retirement, pension etc is paid.

We have 3 debts that we have to keep we can’t sell and we want to pay off.

20k wife’s car

20k my car

8k lawn mower (I have a massive yard almost 8 acres this is a must)

10k per year in vacations (yes you are going to hate this one. We don’t have kids and won’t have kids. We take 2 trips per year with my wife’s family that are about 5k each) both of this years trips are already paid for we pay cash for them. We plan to continue this.

We live in a camper on land we own outright. We plan to build a house here once we are on the right track.

We have 5,000 saved in our emergency fund and no other debts.

Our expenses are just the basic ones everyone has. Internet $100

TV $35

Car insurance $250

Land insurance $125

Pet insurance $160

Groceries $500

Trash $35

My car $400

Wife’s car $400

Lawn mower $275

How do we attack this? Right now we are saving $1,200 per month, and paying 1k per month in debt. Right now we are working on the lawn mower loan paying it off as fast as possible.

Where I struggle on this is at some point when we get the lawn mower paid off, a good portion of 1 of the vehicle loans, and we have around 15k saved we will want to start a house. I expect our construction cost to be around 250k so around 2,000 per month all in on a house payment. That scares the crap out of me.

I’d love to make sure we are on solid ground.

If you are doing the math and wondering where the extra is going yes I’m sure we are spending some in places we shouldn’t but we do always make sure biweekly $700 is going to saving and $500 to paying down debt.

Looking for insight. I follow a lot of financial planners and such. I also watch a lot of budgeting videos and enjoy seeing people break down theirs.

My question is how do you budget Amazon purchases? I don’t see that in anyone budget.

And what I mean by Amazon purchases is more of the subscribe and save purchases.

Do you even schedule or have those? Thoughts and advice appreciated.