doing the numbers
Oct. 8th, 2009 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fleaWe're talking again about the possibility of a new car - a used Toyota Matrix is looking good right now - an '04 or '05, maybe. This leads to talking about the funding of a new car. Which leads to actually setting out, with data, what our monthly income and outflows are. And of course it turns out that the reason we are finding it so hard to save anything is that they are too close together. Our absolute necessities: mortgage, child care, utilities, car insurance and gas, student loan payment, and groceries, puts us with $1200 left over for the month. I'm currently sending $250 of that to my IRA, and then there are things like two plane trips for 4 to Boston in successive months, my MLS tuition, dental care, termite treatment, etc. Some is getting frittered away in mr. flea's lunches out and unnecessary household items, but not really very much. Not enough that if we were really tight about it we'd be able to save up $6000 in the next six months for the other half of a car.
This burden should ease. mr. flea got a rather nice raise recently (6% if I am doing the math right), which was a nice surprise, since my workplace is furloughing me 6 days this year. In 10 months Dillo will start PreK, though my plan is to put the monthly daycare money into a college savings fund starting then. I should be getting a (marginally) better-paying librarian job in the next few years, assuming my workplace ever stops its hiring freeze.
But it's disappointing to see how our spending has risen to our dramatically increased income. Our mortgage is twice our rent (we had really cheap rent); our utilities are higher here (gas/electric some, because the house is bigger, but we now pay 3x as much for water/sewer/trash as we were, which is just a function of the municipality); we have a student loan payment for the first time in a while. Some luxuries are included in those "necessities": $30 a month for satellite TV, $12 a month for a cell phone, $45 for internet. Not a lot I suspect compared to some people.
This burden should ease. mr. flea got a rather nice raise recently (6% if I am doing the math right), which was a nice surprise, since my workplace is furloughing me 6 days this year. In 10 months Dillo will start PreK, though my plan is to put the monthly daycare money into a college savings fund starting then. I should be getting a (marginally) better-paying librarian job in the next few years, assuming my workplace ever stops its hiring freeze.
But it's disappointing to see how our spending has risen to our dramatically increased income. Our mortgage is twice our rent (we had really cheap rent); our utilities are higher here (gas/electric some, because the house is bigger, but we now pay 3x as much for water/sewer/trash as we were, which is just a function of the municipality); we have a student loan payment for the first time in a while. Some luxuries are included in those "necessities": $30 a month for satellite TV, $12 a month for a cell phone, $45 for internet. Not a lot I suspect compared to some people.