What are your monthly living expenses?

[chooniecat]

only do whats necessary in my life(have no vices because I never wanted them!)and consider myself happy. the animals are my world and since they don't have opposable thumbs I am here to cater most of the time. house is almost paid for(yeah!) truck better last and am not adding any more true "pets" as I can't afford more.(of course when the house is paid for.......!!!!) and I have the oldest/cheapest house in several miles.keep the temp. at 50 degrees in winter(no lie) and have a woodstove thats used in dining/kitchen area in evenings/bitter cold.clean house with cloth rags/newspaper(newspaper comes from neighbors). have become very disgusted with "stuff" in the last few years because its mostly useless so..that said-if I would play/win the lottery I would buy the most land possible and be totally self sustained. am SLOWLY heading that way anyhow.so sorry-i DO ramble-have no tv-(obviously internet tho so watch things on it)-have a/c in MY bedroom 8'x12', no trash pu,no monthly cell phone, have well water altho well was struck 2x by lightning about 10 yrs ago so that stuff costs!!!,retired so don't drive much(and when I DO its usually my Mom so she pays for that gas), use the trees on the property for woodstove(and neighbors property because their trees are huge and have fallen on my fence so they let me take the whole fallen tree)

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
My sons have heard enough Dave Ramsey that I think they are starting to get it.

I never had any classes like that in high school, but I had a few financial skills classes as a young troop in the Air Force. For most 18-25 year olds it's just in one ear and out the other.

 

[chicksbestfriend]

Quote:
AMEN TO THAT!! My parents involved us kids in their finances from the day we learned how to add and subtract. We knew when times were lean, and we also knew when times got better and what financial decisions were made to attain financially comfort and security. We knew how much they earned, what bills needed to be paid and where the balance all went. Those lessons in life were worth their weight in gold! I began investing at 18, bought my first house at the age on 25 and have been comfortable throughout my life. I passed down to my children what I had learned about budgeting and investing, stocks and retirements, and I am proud to say all three of them are financially independent and secure, and they are attaining their financially security at a much younger age than what I did. My almost 21 yrs old is about to purchase his first home and my 22 yr old did so at the age of 19. However, there is always one, my 24 yr old is out having to much fun, has not applied anything we taught him, and just waiting for his inheritance from all of us.

 

[newfoundland]

Staggered at Boyd's fuel bills! I understand that you don't want to compromise the integrity of your home but is there no insulation that would help? Here in UK it is not unusual to live in houses that are 100 - 300 years old. There are types of insulation that for example would not touch the fabric of the house itself, or even be seen when installed but would help to keep the house at a more comfortable temperature. What about removable secondary glazing at the windows? It is the English habit to pile rugs on top of carpets to help with draughts through floorboard gaps, but perhaps you already do this. Also I think we keep our homes cooler than in the US, no higher than about 70 Fh. Air conditioning is something we only see in shops and offices, but our climate is not so extreme. I wonder how the original owners of the house lived and made it comfortable for themselves?

 

[Boyd]

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Our house sat on top of a hill, with no true wind break. Just corn and soybean to the north of us... The house was built on top of a concrete slab with cinder block walls, plastered over that. No real insulation

Also, there were MANY MANY MANY windows, and most were drafty. I'd spend a fortune in Caulking every year and still put protective layer of plastic around it all. Then the boiler started failing.. 800 dollars here, 600 there... the well pushed too much air in the line and suddenly my auto bleeders quit working... Blech

And I kept the house at 60-65 degrees

The house was also way to big for what we needed and was hard to keep up on. The new house is wonderful even though its older!

 

[ruth]

Quote:
It was more likely my fuel bill that staggered you. I wrote how it can easily run $2,000+ per month in winter. We are learning to live in an old, raised, non-insulated home. I am buying rugs to put down over the hardwood floors for winter. And, yes, all windows, and there are thousands of panes, need to be re-glazed. There's nothing left around most panes and they would fall out if touched so of course cold/hot air billows in depending on the season. We are also having to do major restorations which involve taking down the outer walls to replace/repair and each time they do, they fill the gap (between walls) with heavy duty insulation. We also still need to buy heavy drapes for all the windows (there are none at present) but since they have to be custom made (the windows are 14' tall going floor to ceiling and there are 4 in every room) that's an expense that will have to wait. It will all take a long time and lots of money to get the home "livable" from both a comfort aspect and an affordable one. I crawled under the house one day to see why the a/c vent in one room wasn't working. Turns out the duct to that vent was laying on the ground under the house and all the nice cold air from the a/c was just blowing out under the house (of course that's why the GPs love staying under there in the summer time). Other ducts had huge holes in them or were barely hanging on or had no insulation wrapped around them. So.....we have lots of duct work to repair/replace and get up to code as well.

Oh the joys of buying an old home that hasn't been lived in for at least 10 years and hasn't been renovated but once and that was over 40 years ago.

 

[HarlansHollowFarms]

I included savings as a monthly expense...everything is accounted for!

 

[ruth]

Quote:
Well, here, they had a fireplace in every room - 9 fireplaces - and they had slaves, followed by slaves known as "share croppers". Our pastor's father is a dear 90 year old man who grew up on this plantation. As a young boy his job was to come into the home at 4:00 in the morning and light all the fireplaces before the "lady of the house" got up. As a grown man, he had to work hard to eventually buy his mother out of servitude because after working this plantation her entire life, and their entire family as well, as share croppers, she was still in debt to the owners and he had to pay off her debt to get his elderly mother off the plantation. I don't mean to start a heated debate but that's the way it was in the deep south on these old plantations. They'd build these palatial homes and had free labor to take care of them. Sort of fitting in a thread about monthly living expenses - once free labor wasn't around these "grand old families" lost their "grand old homes" and a lifestyle that is indeed Gone With the Wind.

We don't use any of the fireplaces because in the original part of the home, 8 fireplaces share 2 chimneys (4 to each chimney) and the old chimneys are not only falling apart they are filled with hundreds of chimney swifts that put on an aerial show at dusk. Someone did a poor job of installing electricity and central a/c in the late 60s/early 70s and it all needs to be redone. If I took a picture of the raw, bare, exposed electrical lines that all come into the side of the house, you'd be wondering why it hasn't burned down yet.

The irony is the home I've lived in for the past 15 years in Covington (and only recently leased out) is a state of the art energy efficient home. 3 stories with over 7,000 sq ft and 3 heat pumps a/c units. We'd run all three full-time, leave every light in the house on, doors open, all units running and the electric bill would be under $200. We just weren't prepared for a home the polar opposite but we're adjusting. Well...at least I'm buying sweaters, socks and layered clothing which presents another problem - other house had over 1,000 sq ft of closets - this one has zero, zip, nadda so where to put all this bulky winter clothing I'm having to buy??? Just adds to the "budget" which seems to be constantly changing around here as we try and adjust to a different way of life.

 

[Chookhouse]

We heat mainly with wood - but that is still a cost. We buy our beef by the hindquarter directly off farm (and now have a source of other meats). The garden is a huge saving even though we pay for a seedsaver membership each year. Our pets probably account for something close to 20 per cent of the budget but they save us money by making it difficult to go away on long trips. I'd like to get rid of satellite teevee but my OH is an addict (though she denies it

) and go back to just the local FTAs and the radio. I need the internet for work so can claim some of it in taxes. I think the problem today is that people confuse standard of living and quality of life: they are two different things.

 

[mistylady]

No vacations here. We spend vacation time fixing things around here. We have a mortgage, tractor payment, $100-125 month a month electric bill, $350 approx for groceries for four are the usual bills. Insurance gets us twice a year. Had to buy hay for the livestock, 5 tons of coal and two cords of wood (usually we cut our own wood but couldn't get it done this year). We invested in a fencing materials and got the acre fenced for the dogs to run. Still need to fence 18 more acres. The garden helped this year but it wasn't a very good garden. Planted a bunch of fruit trees to help with food costs later. There is very little left of a paycheck and that goes to gas in the jeep and truck and if possible I buy a few extra cans of food to put back for emergencies like power outages. We used to have something left out of every check to save but not anymore. Prices just keep going up.