These kinds of threads go poorly about 99% of the time. Generally people give all sorts of reasonable and good suggestions, and the OP will explain why they can't/won't make those cuts.
OP, I think you need two things: (1) Get in sync with your wife so that it's both of you against the budget, not you against her, and (2) you both need to have a goal or vision that is more important than your current spending and therefore worth making the cuts.
If it's just you wanting to make the cuts, or if you're doing them for vague reasons, it won't work.
Thats exactly why have been spinning my wheels for the past 2 years.
Swapping nights with babysitting is a good idea. I have proposed that with my wife but she has yet to make it happen. The wife and I are going through troubles. She wants a date every week. She also wants to see a marriage counselor. I am not seeing how to make it work. Anyhow, Yes, I've tried and she throws a fit every time I try to talk money with her. She doesn't spend a lot, that said I buy everything we need so I'm not sure what she buys. Clothes for her and the kids and food when I am out of town. Anyhow, I won't get much cooperation from her.
I dont think we have a contract on the phones. Its ATT.
On the yard maintenance no... Thats just for mowing and the hedges. I am on the road 100 days a year so I dont want to put that on my wife to do while I'm gone... she wouldn't do it anyway if I did. As it is I am still doing an 5-10 hours a month on yard work. Weeding, hand pruning, fixing spriklers. I also do a lot of house work, Seems every weekend I am fixing an appliance or cabinet drawer or something.
On the food, we are still spending about ~300 a month on formula alone, its time to ween him off, but hes in no hurry.
I'm not great at maths, but it looks like you are spending more than you earn every month, right? So this isn't about just going on vacation or saving but about not going into debt after such a promising start and such a high salary. You can do better.
There is a little more income, about 10-15k from bonuses and my side hustle but its inconsistent so I try not to rely on it. We have been break even. I had to pull out about 5k last year from the investment account but was able to put it back toward the end of the year.
No debt other than the mortgage, which is at 2.75%
Yes, the kids a have lots of individually packages stuff for their lunches. Oreos, small bags of snacks, juice boxes, I know that adds up. We switched from bags to tupperwares mostly and are buying mostly costco packages.
On data. I used 1.44 TB of data in the past 3 years. I listen to 2-3 hours of podcasts a day and work from my phone. So I think I need unlimited Data. And I am often in remote locations. I need to talk to my employer about reimbursing me for my phone. That would be ideal.
