Sounds like y'all have inflated your lifestyle even more since then and made some poor choices. :(
We lived on our boat for a year and socked away money like crazy. Then we bought a 1,000 sq ft house at the very bottom of the market and remodeled it with the money we'd socked away. Lived there for two years and sold for triple, and then took the windfall from that sale and put it towards buying our current property and construction. We've increased our savings rate from $0 to what it is now since 2011, the new mortgage is less than the mortgage on the house posted about in Lost at Sea, and our other expenses have gone down with the exception of health insurance for our kids, our life insurance policies, and childcare. We're by no means model Mustachians (it's hard without total buy in from hubby) but I do think we've made strides towards improving, not the opposite.
You should have waaaaaaay more in retirement/investment accounts for your income.
I agree, but we have been increasing our savings rate each year since we started trying to do better in 2011. I would like to be saving at least 40% though by maxing out two Roths as well.
Your housing costs are insane, even with the potential savings of him working on your house build, a nearly million dollar house isn't "frugal" by any stretch of the imagination. Even if you can afford it, you have to realize that the property taxes, insurance and upkeep are going to be really, really high, right? I'm sure there's going to be a maid service and lots and lots of fancy new and expensive furnishings that you just have to have once you move in and then there is maintaining the lifestyle of living in a fancy million dollar house so all you're doing right now is following the path for classic lifestyle inflation.
I feel compelled to mention that our housing costs include >$500 a month in principal. So there's that, right?! I hate the $500 for the UCC but if it was part of our regular mortgage and amortized over 30 years it would be a lot less per month, but I'm happy that it's being paid off at a faster rate. The payment is also for the maximum we were allowed for the UCC even though we used $10K less. So it will actually be paid off faster than 15 years.
We still own most of the furniture necessary to furnish the house. We will get a dresser for our baby, and a couch for the bonus room off Craigslist, but that is all of the furniture we'll need unless we also buy a toddler bed for our son in which case we'd sell one of the cribs. There will be NO maid service!
The tax and insurance increase does suck :( Hopefully it won't actually assess at $900K. I would have valued what we're building at $750K personally, but the real estate market in Seattle is insane right now. A 3 bedroom rental half the size in our area would cost $2500/month, and while the house would seem more Mustachian it would cost us more. I do realize we could make the choice to live in a lower COL area.
The house includes a detached shop for hubby's projects which should also equal bonus income (selling the furniture he makes) and it also includes a MIL apartment that would easily rent for $1000+. We'll be renting it at a discounted rate of $400 plus free babysitting to my sister initially.
We are building a very energy efficient home including solar panels, so I hope our utilities will be a bit less than what is posted, but I didn't want to under report.
And giant boats and a yacht club? $250/month on gifts? Your food costs (grocery/eating out) is just under $1k a month for 2 adults and 2 kids? Contrary to what tj said, $500 a month on eating out is not a reasonable amount - it's stupid high. You spend $100 a month on clothes? What are you doing to your clothing that you need $1200 a year in replacements?
The giant boat is an antique Chris Craft. Both that and the fishing boat my husband bartered for with side job work, so didn't cost us out of pocket initially. They do tack on a lot of extra monthly expense though. We plan to serve as officer's for our club soon which will then make monthly membership free for the rest of our lives. That and a slightly smaller boat will save at least $150 plus some insurance savings.
I totally agree the food is out of control! It does include toiletries and non-grocery items, but my goal is to keep groceries at $400 and eating out at $250. Is $650 for a family of four crazy?
I don't think we actually spend $1200 a year on clothing, but part of getting husband to agree to his allowance was to make sure that all expenses were covered in the budget. My husband actually does need to replenish his Carhartt work gear to the tune of probably $300 per year. We've never actually bought the kids clothes, it's all hand me downs and Buy Nothing freebies. I've gotten a lot of my clothes recently off our local Buy Nothing, and probably spend <$300 a year which I could also bring down. I tend to ask for clothing at Christmas too.
Gifts - this one drives me crazy! It's broken down like this: $50 each for extend family birthdays (lots of siblings all of whom are generous with us so we feel we can't be stingy back) plus mother's/father's day = $600. Another $600 at Christmas for the extended fam. $200 for each of our birthdays and again at Christmas and $200 for stockings = $1800. For each of the people we buy for we also receive from, so there's that. When you look at the cost of the individual gifts it doesn't seem crazy (at least not based on how I was raised) but added all together it's insane! The extended family has discussed cutting down on gift giving but then it's never put into practice. Husband would balk at getting less than a $200 gift at Christmas or his birthday. Stockings are the typical underwear/sock replenishing type things.
Your budget seems pretty reasonable, you're already saving around 25% which is cetainly better than most people. Nothing wrong with a yacht club as long as you actually use it.
Are you on the right forum?
I'm wondering the same. I know I'm far from perfect, but I still know what Mustachianism looks like and it's not me yet!
This also exceeds their net salary of $84,000 per year...
Am I missing something here? $120K is our after taxe income, not our gross income.
I realize a lot of this is excuses, and as I said I do want to get our savings rate up so I appreciate the face punches, keep them coming. I also do not like the fact that based on this budget, if we sell the rental like we plan to do next year we no longer have enough income to cover these budgeted for expenses. The rental is no longer under water though thankfully and we will walk with a chunk of change.
We have additional savings besides our retirement accounts but I don't want to count any of it because some will go towards construction costs. We do have a small college savings account too.
Maybe I'll post a revised target budget and then we can pick that apart? I do want to retire early, and I know we're not on that track yet.