Hello there
Thanks, appreciate the replies.
larabeth, Investing is something I know nothing at all about! Not feeling ready for that at this stage. I tried to find those threads but the search seemed to be broken. Yes thank you, that post was the very first one that led me to MMM!
Anyway to go on, I just have a niggly feeling that something is not in balance with our life/budget/goals.... but I can't work out what.
Thanks for the nice words Woody Viet :) - I know one thing that bothers me is I feel we are wasting a great opportunity, as you say, we are young to be in this position.
Anyway here's the breakdown
ALL PER MONTH:-
GROCERIES $925 incl having lots of friends round, good food. Would like to do more but spend less, I do go overboard.
EVERYDAY EXP $275-$500 - personal, medical, fun, small house maint eg garden
UTILITIES $652
ALCOHOL $320 (last yr mthly was $425!) I don't drink anymore and DH has always had approx 3 drinks/week, rest is gift/entertaining
TAKEAWAY $100 (almost never eat out! prefer to cook ourselves)
EXPECTED EXP $560 - various annual eg pest control, my only mag subscription fee, house & health insurance, credit card fee (!) {DH says the rewards outweigh the fee}
IRREGULAR EXP - $1250 - eg travel to visit family (some overseas), house repairs, dentist, charities
GIVING $775 - weddings, birthdays, tithing, child's savings
CLOTHING $275-500 depending on season
Goals - House - we love current house location but the floorplan is badly flawed (dark, wasted spaces, lack bathrooms,odd bedrooms etc).It bothers me more as I'm the SAHM/homemaker. Have been watching the market for years and can see the most economical option is to build... but have not looked into actual land/build costs. DH says ideally he wants to wait and do this without a mortgage but I don't want to wait forever! or he says just extend this house (more costly, less benefit) as we do love the location/setting. I don't know what to think... and whenever I bring it up we end up coming back to those same two options and get no further!
Retirement - I only just suggested this to DH, he is of course keen, but we have no idea what to aim for....
Savings - the 40k mentioned in first post is what's in the actual bank account.
In the budget it is noted as $22k New House/Renovation and $12k "DH Fund". He would like to build this up to at least $50k and then it would be used eventually towards charity.
Anyway hopefully something jumps out at whoever reads this... thanks MMM's!