Spend a few hours and dig into your insurances. I am unsure of the size of your house, car types, etc but you might be able to trim up those expenses. While you are at it, check into filling a property tax appeal. We just did that and saved around $700 a year.
I recently shopped and switched car insurance. I checked about everywhere and this was by far the cheapest option (Hopefully as we get a little older it will go down) I will definitely look into filling a property tax appeal! Does it cost anything? Any harm in just trying it?
Overall I would say you are doing great as long as you can stick to these numbers. Are they based off of previous years living expenses? Especially the entertainment and personal spending. I know people here stick to very low numbers in terms of eating out etc, but if last year you spent 2,000 on entertainment and this year you say 200, you might be surprised.
Your natural gas and electricity seem high for hotlanta. I would investigate your houses insulation, air tightness etc. Many of the houses in the south were not insualted nor sealed for crap when they are built.
The numbers are based on what we spent last year, and looking into next year for what we are planning on buying. Entertainment is so low because we do not include going out to eat in that (which we do often). That is included in the food category.
I agree that our natural gas and electricity are a little high. This is mostly due to the fact that my will not agree to go any lower on our temp when we are home (We keep it on 62 in the winter and 78 in the summer) This is already a huge compromise compared to how she grew up. Also, I probably over estimated these expenses slightly to error on the side of caution.
Car Lease (It was a good deal, I promise! $3,240.00
I don't think you'll find anyone that agree's with that here. Good deal? Maybe. Smart decision? No.
While I am usually very much so against car leases (Or car financing in general) I found my recent lease deal to be a great deal. It is for a nissan leaf for two years and the total cost for me is $6,250. $5,000 of that I get back in the form of a state tax credit, making my final cost for two years $1,250 ($52 a month). I save much more than that a month, not having to buy gas. And on top of that I am not losing money from deprecation of my previous car. And have zero maintenance with my leaf