Life Situation: DH (31) and I (26) are somewhat mustachian, but not looking to FIRE, just to be financially responsible. We have some other out of the box aspects to our situation too:
One, we’re religious – not christian - and many of our expenses/financial decisions are made in accordance with our religious values. We give away a significant portion of our income to charity, regularly spend money on our just about monthly religious holidays, and support religious institutions in addition to our regular charity. I get that many people here would not agree with those decisions and would argue with me that if we saved more in the long run we could give more support to these things, but those categories aren’t ones I’m asking for feedback on.
Two, along the similar lines, one religious commandment we take seriously is having children. We’ve been married 4 years and not yet conceived, so we’re heading to a reproductive endocrinologist later this month. Thank G-d, in general we’ve been healthy and barely visited the doctor at all since we’ve been married, but I expect our medical expenses will jump drastically in the coming year. We may be able to get some financial support from our religious community, but we’re not sure how much.
Three, my husband is a self-employed handyman and his income fluctuates wildly from month to month, but I’m just averaging out what he makes, and I deducted what we set aside for self-employment taxes (since we file jointly his tax rate is about 15%).
Other than that pretty usual. I teach in a religious private school, (I make more there than I would in public school, but it’s not about the money). Occasionally, I do some online tutoring on Chegg.com (but only made $115 in the past year, because it’s really sporadic.), I have self-published book that makes about $10 a year (lol), and some other random occasional side jobs that don’t amount to much.
Tax status: Married, filing jointly
Monthly take home pay: 3,744 4,182
Me: 3,373
DH:
371809 (the original was a mistake)
Average monthly expenses: Housing - $900 - Renting a 1 bedroom, 1.5 bath apt. Cheapest we could find in the area close to our religious community
and family. Housing in our area is pretty high. Most 1 bedroom apartment rentals are between $950 -
$1300 per month, 2 bedrooms more like $1250 - $1600. To buy a real fixer upper 3 bedroom house is
around $275,000 and a normal one for $400,000.
Grocery - $214
Transportation: Car Insurance - 129.27 - Thinking this may be a bit high. We have a 2002 Toyota Camry and drive about 5,000 miles a year)
Gas - 40.98 - I have a big commute, but I love my job.
Parking/Uber/Taxi- 20.23 - Since we only have one car, sometimes Uber is necessary, and since we live near a big city paying for
parking is something we do on occasion when we go to a park or the beach, etc.
Car Repairs- 170.47 - Old car! My husband is handy, and has fixed several things himself, but is not confident enough to take
on certain jobs and I’m mess with anything requiring coordination.
Plane/Bus/Train Tickets - 253 - Includes a plane ticket for my SIL who was in a foreign country when my husband’s grandfather
passed away. Without that expense we avg 61. That’s mostly plane tickets, we don’t travel much, but
when we do it’s far. We go to visit my parents who live several thousand miles away about twice a
year. We also went once to visit friends in a state too far to bus to.
Religious - 85.44 - This includes purchases for holidays, memberships religious organizations (to support
them, but we don’t include this in charity), and religious texts. Big expenses not monthly, but averages
out to this.
Teaching Supplies - 25.31 Books for my classroom library, some decorations, and art supplies (we do projects fairly regularly and
I'm not so good about remembering to bring in my receipts for reimbursement.Totally facepunch
worthy.)
Handyman supplies - 106.88 I know based on the amount my husband spends on supplies, and the amount he makes after
taxes this business doesn’t really make sense, but he has some psychological struggles that are
impediments to holding a regular full time job and since we’re doing okay, I haven’t pushed the issue. It
may be time to talk about this again though….
Giving:
Charity - 481
Gifts - 25.38 - Mostly for birthdays
Health:
Insurance - 496.98 -This category is the most :( for me. We have the cheapest plan available on our state’s marketplace,
so extremely high deductible, covers very little, and doesn’t cover infertility at all. The insurance my job offered
last year was insane for a couple (over a thousand a month) and for an individual was slightly more expensive
than what we have now with slightly better terms. We really only have this in case, G-d Forbid, would get
extremely ill. Been looking into healthshare option, but only found one with religious affiliation so far and we
can’t join one that would have us following a different religion’s laws.
Doctor Visits - 1 - That was to let the RE’s office test out that our credit card worked.
Vitamins - 9.88
Dates - 62.57 - Includes all the activities we did on our 3 week vacation abroad this year (was our first vacation not to visit
parents in 4 years of marriage. Not planning to do anything similar any time soon). Our usual average is
about is about 25.
Misc:
Electricity - 75.42 - Water covered by our landlord. We live a hot climate, but keep our air conditioning at 81 on average.
Internet - 49.95 - Was 19.95, for our first year, just jumped now that the year ended. The only available competition
charges charges $50 for first year and then $60. We don't have a TV and don't want one.
Other - 223 - This includes the laptop I had to buy on short notice, when my 5 year old one stopped functioning. Without
the laptop, 138.58. (Hmm, guessing that will probably get me some facepunches too)
Cell Phone - 49 -I’m on republic wireless, DH metro pcs with my MIL
Total 2,521.30
So, if we were staying on this course, that leaves us with about an average of
$1,222.70 $1,660.70savings /month or
33% 39% savings rate. Likely that won’t happen because of the infertility treatment, and if it’s successful our expenses would surely go up with a kid, but probably we’ll still keep saving some.
Liabilities/Assets:No debt :D We’re really good about paying credit cards on time, Thank G-d, and bought our car using cash. My masters (elementary Ed.) and BA (in political sciene) were both sponsored by my parents and my husband dropped out of college before his financial aid grant ran out, so no student loans.
Not much to say in the way of assets, though. Our car is worth ? . We bought it for a little over $4,000, and have since put on two new tires, but the air conditioning broke, and until we figure out how to fix it, in this climate that makes the car worth significantly less. We have about 14k in the bank.
Specific Question(s): 1. I think we’re doing well, but any suggestions, other than religious related ones, would be welcome. Just if you have something to say about DH, please keep it nice. He is a kind, gentle, wonderful person and I married him knowing that he didn’t come from the same kind of financially educated background that I did. His father is the same kind of sporadically employed handyman as he is (they work together periodically) and his mother has not had what one could call a conventional career path either. He is open to discussion and has adopted many of my financial ideas gladly, but the job thing is complicated for him.
2. Despite our bank account funds being larger now than we really need for emergency savings, I haven’t invested anything because we’re strongly considering moving to another country within 5 years. From what I’ve read, it seemed to me like you can’t invest using Vanguard or other index funds if you don’t have an address in the United States, and the market being as volatile as it is, I don’t want to invest short term. Is this a correct assessment?
3. I just found out recently that my school does have a retirement plan matching policy. I have to see our financial coordinator for more info, but what are relevant questions to ask when I do go see her? Would our possible plans to move potentially make that not a good idea also?
4. Seems to me like my take home pay is a little to high, based on 15% tax rate and the fact that I have a contract for $45,000 ayear. Should I ask my financial coordinator at school to withhold more? Am I misunderstanding something about how taxes work?
Thanks in advance for your feedback!
Edits due to this:
Wow, thanks so much everyone for all the helpful responses!
First off, just wanted to mention that I somehow missed entering two months of my husband's income in my spreadsheet (I'm to go back and edit my original post afterward, G_d Willing), so while his business is still on the lower end of the spectrum, it's not as unprofitable as I thought. We did talk last night and he was open to hearing some my suggestions for how he might improve the business (more advertising, discounts for people who refer, keeping better records of his hours so he can know for sure how much he's making, since he tends to price by project, etc.).