Thanks for your welcomes and the responses! Even just crafting this post and laying things out differently has helped shift my perspective already.
madmax - I'll definitely go check out IP Daley's thread. I knew phones could be so much cheaper, $20 seems like a dream! I'll admit to being resistant on selling the car - we've gone 40k miles in 2 years, one tank of gas has never cost even $30 to go over 400 miles, and it's been SO reliable. I was spending almost as much with the amount of traveling we've had to do with previous cars just on gas. That being said, it's going on the table for discussion.
Travis - "smoking a car payment every month" is awesome! I'm using that phrase. I usually spend only $50 a month out of my allowance, and don't make a big deal about re-routing the extra into paying some interest on the student loans so they don't balloon as much. The IRA contribution has been on autopilot from previous single full-time student paycheck and I hadn't really thought about how much I was putting in - at that point I felt I was doing well to be putting ANYthing in. We've talked about doing at least his haircuts at home, and I just haven't been gutsy enough to try and have it look terrible. I'm confident I could do the sides and back (we even already have the clippers), but he gets the top scissor-cut because of a big cowlick, and that's been the intimidating part. The household good number is what we have in the budget, but in the last month or two, we haven't spent anywhere near that. I set the number when we were building up a reserve of stuff from Costco, but now those purchases are pretty sporadic and the category could probably be reduced. Thanks for the thought on YNAB entries, I was debating this week whether to start using bank downloads for entries or to keep doing them manually - I'll be sticking with manually!
act01 - We're definitely still adjusting to the house thing - We do currently have about $2100 for maintenance/repairs, but that's really already allocated (refinishing floors and putting the bathroom back together from a structural repair, all DIY. DH used to be a carpenter, woohoo!). We definitely need to be putting some aside for that. I'll start looking into the terms of a HELOC - it's a new territory of options for us! The life insurance is about $150k on each of us, and it's really intended for taking care of the house if something happens to either one of us - the student loans would be forgiven in the event of death. It's a really big peace of mind factor, as neither one of us wants to potentially leave the other at all worried about making the bills in the aftermath. A good portion of my spending money I do quietly redirect toward debt - my loans will come into repayment in June 2016, and we can realistically have paid the car off by then, which frees up that portion for my loan payments. And that's without considering the room rental income. We're living very comfortably with this setup, and once DH gets more than his student salary, ALL of the extra is slated for debt repayment - potentially $30k per year plus windfalls. So we're definitely concerned - but trying to make sure we have a manageable plan of attack. Not sure how either one of us feel about selling the current car because of reasons detailed above, but it's definitely being added to the list of things to discuss.
theadvicist - I sometimes think it's silly the way we have things, because I do already spend so much less than him and quietly transfer it to other things like student loan interest or extra on the car payment. He's very adamant about us receiving EQUAL portions so nobody feels slighted or less than the other. We run all the money so everything is joint - and the current $50/week goes to our individual accounts and is none of the other's business. It works out great for the relationship - but to change the budget line we both need to agree on it.
Indio - I'll make sure to forward that post on to him. He wasn't smoking until this past summer - he had been smoke-free for years and fell back into it. He doesn't even seem to like it, but we haven't found quite the right motivation yet to make real movement on the issue. We'll talk about the 3rd bedroom. We're
definitely planning on making the whole yard an edible paradise - and we both have connections in the horticultural world here to be able to do it on a tight budget. We already have almost everything we need to get started, so those savings should be pretty immediate.
MayDay - That's a really great way you've come up with for doing the actual cutting out! He really is in favor of cutting the budget, but has a hard time actually doing the cutting. Very practical and a collaborative way of cutting, rather than it feeling like a harsh imposition all at once, but still making progress.
2ndTimer - I haven't ventured over into the journal section yet - I'm still exploring! I'll think about that. Part of posting here was getting up the guts to share with a group of people who are saving more than us - I talk with friends and family, and we're already more frugal than our comparison group, so there's not as much accountability. I'll also look for encouraging the SO posts. We're making a conscious effort to spend less on the groceries - for November, we're not even up to $80 yet.
skunkfunk - You're definitely right about the phone thing. I've been pushing some other things more than this until now, and this should change. I'd have done it for him just to have it done, but I can't with the way the account is set up. But it's not a good excuse. DH also had a car when we got together, and we took stock about what we needed and how much each was costing us. We decided together to keep the prius and sell his. The car loan certainly isn't ideal, but the choice was made before DH's loans were in the picture and I plan on keeping it until its completely dead. While I do love my little car (it's the compact version!), all things are on the table for discussion - including giving it up. We've been talking about how to attack the debt - whether we aggressively pay down the car payment which is a lower interest rate, or to start throwing all of it at the student loans. We can take care of the car debt before the student loans come into repayment and have more available to throw in that direction - but then they have more time to balloon. That's an interesting way to deal with the spending money category
Action points:- Talk about the possibility of switching out the car
- Improve my haircutting skills
- Build a house maintenance/emergency fund
- Switch DH's phone plan ASAP
- Start a journal post for accountability
- Reduce spending in household goods and groceries
- Revisit our discussions about life insurance
- Look into what HELOCs look like
- Keep making YNAB entries manually
- Either reduce spending money, or bundle other line items in with it
- Gather strategies in getting DH fully involved in the planning
Thanks so much for your tips and encouragement so far! We've made decent progress so far, but there's definitely room for improvement. Your input has already been helpful, as has the whole exercise of writing the situation out like this.