Haha! Our fixed housing costs includes HOA fees which pay for the community pool guy and the community lawn care team. I always claimed I would not live somewhere with an HOA or a pool but then I became a cliche of an IWTYTBR podcast person 
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I think this definitely has to be part of it. Food costs have gone up but with the pandemic plus small extra human plus full time jobs we’ve totally stopped tracking. We currently do takeout 1x/week and usually use door dash with a big tip so it gets quite expensive. Even if we need a built-in ‘easy dinner’ night we can switch to a frozen TJ’s treat.
We also have a great CSA that’s helped cut down on produce costs but there’s at least 1-2 things that go straight to the compost each week when we don’t use them fast enough or aren’t that enthusiastic about eating it (bitter red lettuce I’m looking at you). If we committ to pre-roasting or freezing a few things that will keep longer and actually eating all the lettuce, our grocery budget will go even farther.
Unrelated - I need to check out grocery meat prices. We get 10lb/month frozen meat delivered from central coast farms and the cost is high but not that high based on the last time I was comparison shopping. I think we can probably still keep this as long as we add in more vegetarian nights to reduce overall grocery spending. I made a delicious curried red lentil dish yesterday and am inspired to do more of this.
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This is such a great way to look at it. Your point about giving up alcohol has already been on my mind for a summer reset anyway (or at least limiting it to a weekend evening on the patio date-night sort of thing).
I will put this on our weekend to-do list! You may not believe it based on looking at our budget, but we actually mostly spend our weekends exploring parks or hiking trails with the kiddo. We do have a membership to the botanical gardens nearby but that’s a sunk cost and we need to use it more before it expires in the fall. We are actually not good about planning activities in general so I wanted to put together a list of things but I will keep them all free.
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One more TV and TC:
TV: Thankfully this is a happening at the same time our childcare costs are going from $4k/month to $2k/ month!! (I promise my budget numbers above are accurate, we were spending more on fun new house furniture for a while and then started spending more on childcare but slowed outfitting the house. This situation was going to reverse again in June.)
TC: I was already starting to (window) shop for a fancy new couch once our budget freed up in June! Womp womp…we will focus on being grateful that current couch is functional, even if if it’s ugly and a bit saggy.
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Is this effective immediately? If you have a couple of months before it happens, I’d curry to rice-and-beans now and drop the retirement savings.
… Still reading…
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Oooh, I like the giving talk. And definitely agree about it being an obligation at a certain point.
What really helps me figure out giving strategies is to have a giving philosophy. What or who do you want to invest in globally or locally?
I.e I don’t generally give (money) to people I know, I’d support their businesses, but not go fund me. My partner is from a culture where he believes strongly in giving to people he knows! So he does a lot of that. Partly because where he’s from there is less infrastructure around taking care of people - it’s all done by family and friends, so he adds to that.
I like supporting smaller resources that provide food, mental health, social support. Not The Food Bank but a food bank which asks less questions. And a women’s resource centre. And an international charity.
Friends are patrons of arts and cultural organizations. I like that but I support the arts only when I get something back 
. I don’t support political parties because they spam me. Another friend pays a land tax by supporting native orgs. Another donates to church.
So what does your rich world look like? What is available to everyone? To the poor? Then you get to be the rich bitch making it happen!
Another thing we do in my family is the oxfam and plan gifts of hope at holidays - seeing what people put on a wish list is really cool. My mum always asks for vaccines and mosquito nets, my SIL always wants women’s health, my dad likes goats, and I often go for books. If you look through their catalogue you might notice where your heart goes and then even if you don’t want to support that org, you have great insight i to your values.
I do want to get into micro finance too!
I do like automating some of my giving, and I hear it’s best for charity budgets that way.
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Once again caveat that I have (almost) always felt like I had great abundance compared to both my friends and the general world so I don’t struggle with IBL but
Everyone I’ve given money to is doing urgent and/or interesting things with it that are SO much cooler and more urgent and important than the money just sitting in my checking or savings account. I love Elle’s framing of figure out what’s important to you and then give it to others. I started out with local farms and food justice orgs because I love good food and ethical farming practices.
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This is a good question. It seems like May will be paid and June is possibly yes but July is more likely no?*
Spouse and I chatted tonight about dropping expenses now to build up more of a buffer if there are lean months coming.
I am currently sitting on my ugly couch. It’s plenty comfortable and will last another year or two 
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Not sure about your area, but I’ve seen many a nice couch for a discount on Craigslist in mine!
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I love how you write about giving. It’s thoughtful and personal. I think you’re so right to encourage giving where you feel it as an individual. The idea of a giving philosophy is beautiful. I think, like you said, people do their best giving when it’s something they feel aligned with. I never thought about it in those terms, but I see a pattern in what I choose. I like to give to mostly local organizations that focus on primary needs, like: shelter, food, schooling. I also give to several orgs for disabled people specifically. Husband likes to give to organizations that support learning and enrichment, and larger environmental causes as well as smaller disability orgs. We switch off on charity picks each time we up our donations and it’s so fun!
My family growing up did a lot of classic charity donations and volunteering, but the older members also did a lot of personal giving. I’d like to get into that more in my older years when I have a lot of wealthy. My dream is to just flat out pay for a major something for someone, like a friend’s kid’s college or pay off their mortgage or something. Just, here you go! No strings attached. Bye! Haha. I would love that! My uncle basically did that for my college- handed me a massive check like nbd. He did stuff like that for so many people, like practically anyone who ever worked for him or crossed paths with him. Really awesome example. He did it in such a nice way too. I’d get sad thinking about him but I know he’d probably smack me from beyond the grave if I did, haha. “It’s a beautiful day! Don’t cry about an old man! Go eat something!”
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Thanks for that. My 3 big donations are the food bank (I looked at alternatives but the main one seems to have best reach/value here), IRC, and PP/NARAL. Smaller amounts to ACLU, Wikipedia, public tv/radio. That probably defines my values pretty well!
I think I need to discuss giving philosophies with Human, partly to articulate mine and make it Real and get Validation, and also to come to agreement on amounts as a unit (not that we’re hiding anything, it’s just in our individual discretionary spending right now).
As far as personal and go fund me giving,
Under the fold for humble brag deets
- In grad school, lent $$$ from my savings to friend w kids in a temporary bad spot. I cried that day. Later asked her to not pay me back after I got Real Job. She’s doing fine/stable now, but I like to spoil the kids sometimes.
- I support classroom fundraisers for teacher friends and parent friends when I see them (because our school funding is cr@p in this country). Plus anything I feel like (usually local to me or friends of friends and real bad luck vs irresponsibility. Not funding vacations, etc)
- In a group of old college friends, found out that one was putting off medical treatment due to cost concerns. Conspired with others to split the cost. Told friend to pay it forward.
I definitely come from a “care for your own” culture and have benefitted from family loans to me and my parents and myself, so that probably influences my approach to big needs in my immediate circle. I can’t sit on 10k in savings when someone in my circle has unmet needs, yanno?
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I think we’re in a similar ish relationship stage, and this resonates. For us it would be just a couple of conversations, but it’s so hard to make that happen!
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@Sunflower I have had my income paused due to “startup shenanigans” in the past. We actually deferred salary so it was still on the books, to be paid out when the company was in a better cash position (no guarantees though). I had a prior savings of 1 yr living expenses that I was drawing lightly from and was single with no dependents; it was hardest on the partner who was helping support their parents. In the end it paid off but that was at least 75% luck. The startup fundraising climate suddenly became more difficult this month and I’m reading that it may take 18 months to fully bounce back.
I think it’s awesome that you’re planning ahead. And having a timeframe (eg 4 months) that you’re willing to do this is already a great step for communication!
It depends on your personal situation and prefs but I find it easier to make cuts or find irregular income in bigger chunks. Some slightly out-there ideas along those fronts:
- Sell random electronics and other high value items on ebay, if you have any old laptops or phones or lululemon. These are so standardized, it’s usually easy to buy back if/when you want again.
- Get a temporary month-to-month roommate, if you can spare it and HOA allows.
- Sell or trade down a car.
- Shop your car insurance to reduce monthly payments.
- Shop your phone & home internet plans. Call or text them, say you want to cancel, they will offer you a better rate.
Unhelpful now
Once you have some extra room in the budget again, putting aside 6 months living expenses in cash or high yield savings account is a great buffer for situations like this.
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Thanks for adding your perspective! I agree that startup funding is going to dry up, so we’ll see how things progress. Without getting into too much detail, they have some federal funding that might come through in July and the work is in an area that’s a very hot topic so…who knows.
Thanks for your out of the box ideas too! We sold our 2nd car in March (for $2K 
) but our insurance didn’t drop because homeowners went up at the same time. We should shop that around for sure.
My gut reaction to considering a roommate is that I’d much rather get the spending under control and figure out what a great life looks like with a lower level of consumption. A good thought experiment for sure.
I ran a bunch of numbers this weekend and reminded myself that we budget a month in advance on YNAB so we have an additional month of buffer! And our emergency fund is separate from categories like “car repairs” and “medical” which have another few thousand combined, should they become necessary.
We do need to build a bigger cash buffer though. Our fixed housing costs went up substantially a year ago and I never adjusted my mental math of how much cash to keep on hand. We also had a huge tax bill this year ($15K) which depleted the cash we did have. All of that led to increasing our tax withholding much higher so our take-home pay is suddenly quite a bit lower.
So, we will be fine financially but this is a great wakeup call that we have chosen to spend money in the areas that are important to us (house!) and we need to be grateful for that but realistic about what it means for the rest of the budget.
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If you’re down one paycheck for 4 months would it make sense to redo the withholding?
I hate the new W4 so much that I would maybe say no to this but since this is a cash flow issue rather than a long term wealth issue getting more cash now might be worth it.
I would hate for you to reduce 401k contribution when you could reduce withheld taxes and not have to pay taxes on the 401k moneh
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Oooo good point! (But ugh…I also hate the new W4…I don’t wanna!)
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I mean, you also have a TON in your retirement! So you really just don’t have much of a cash buffer.
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I don’t know how I just happened upon this thread, but I did. @ElleP your responses really resonated with me. But also intrigued me.
Hubby’s mother would have given the shirt off her back for anyone. In fact, her husband had to call a halt and insist her own seven children were clothed and fed, and the bills paid before she gave away any more money. Consequently the children were often not fed the best food and often wore ill fitting clothing, because she wanted to spend money on “the poor”.
It left a bad taste in a lot of the children’s mouths. So Hubby does not believe in giving to any charity. Unless it’s someone we know who is experiencing hardship. Then he will give directly to them.
I’ve struggled with this situation because I’m the generous one of the two of us. But having been conned a few times by individuals, I no longer give unless it’s been vetted by a church with people I trust in charge.
I did read a book called “Giving 2.0” once, that helped me work out a giving philosophy. But it was really aimed at philanthropists…people with a lot of money. That is not us. But I highly recommend the book for people interested in developing a giving philosophy.
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Alright, I finally have enough info to do this! How fun.
Here is my question: We have been in reactive mode since buying our house last year. How can we shift into proactive mode and set up automated savings/sinking funds? What would a more proactive situation look like? I do better with goals, and I’m not sure what we should aim for. Oh, and should I try to get a job where I make more money?
Our case study: 2 married ladies in their mid-30s. Own a home that needed some big maintenance investments upfront. Live in a growing city in the US Mountain West, have a high needs dog and want to have at least two kids. We have been able to handle big one-off expenses as they come up through commission checks or other windfalls (not dipping into savings).
Financial Picture:
- Income: $8K/month after taxes, health insurance/FSA, and automatic retirement savings. In addition, wife #1 should earn $100K+ a year before taxes in commissions each year, but the full amount obviously isn’t guaranteed. She is on track to do it, company is growing and is in a more recession-proof field, and they set achievable quotas for sales people. Wife #2 (me!) has more earning potential.
(Deleting some numbers at wife’s request)
Goals
- Having a kid is expensive for us, so we’re looking at anywhere from a few thousand to a hundred thousand per kid. This is our top financial goal. We’re going through fertility treatment now and have probably spent $10K+ so far.
- Keep building up emergency fund: would love to get it closer to $30-40K.
- Figure out if our retirement money is in the smartest places and if we should increase savings there.
- Have a system for deciding when to buy furniture, rugs, etc.: we have what we need to function and are upgrading things as we can.
- Plan for a big house project: we would like to do a significant reno, but I’m not sure how people plan for this?! (for reasons I can explain if anyone cares: it doesn’t make sense to do it bit by bit)
- We like to travel and eat at restaurants, almost every food makes my tummy hurt so I have to be picky for groceries, and we are saving where we can when it comes to the dog, so advice to cut way back on or eliminate those expenses will not be implemented. Sorry!
Happy to answer any questions you have too! Oh, and an edit: I just updated my journal with some blow-by-blow spending stuff, if you’d like that context.
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Oh fun! A few Q’s:
- Where is your emergency fund now? Do you have access to credit cards that could also be used in emergencies?
-
How much do you currently have in your emergency fund?READ BETTER NOODLE - Where do your investments live now?
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