I've been lurking for a year or two, and I feel like enough life uncertainties have passed that I can now do a case study for us. As I've learned, it's all about priorities and having a larger wedding was something that although many don't agree with, was important to both of us (face punch away, but best day of my life!) and although we didn't go into debt, we are basically starting over. We're both 24, and combined we make combined about 100-110k before tax, and we're in IL with no kids but a wiener dog. I've been at my job a little over a year, and was making 40k, and just got a pretty big raise in April with my promotion. I didn't max out my 401k due to the wedding, but contributed over the company match. Husband decided to not take his 5th year athletically, but still had some school requirements he had to knock out online, so he technically graduated in December 2014, where he was hired but not with a start date until March 2015, which was his first month working full time. We both received athletic scholarships so thankfully no student loans.
Gross Salary: Me: 52k Him: 55-60k.
Pre-tax deductions: None, we do Roth IRA/401k
Other Ordinary Income: I picked up bartending before the wedding, but will probably not continue doing this after wedding. Number not included in 52k, as it pretty much just washed out with the wedding.
My 401k Deductions, 6% about $180 a month
Husband's 401k Deductions, 30% about $1250 a month
My 10k raise that is going into our IRAs- $833/month
Monthly Retirement Savings: $2,263
Husband's Take Home Pay Post Tax/401k/Health/Dental Insurance for both of us- $1600
My Take Home Pay Post Tax/401k- $2400 (not including the 10k raise which will go into our IRAs)
Total Monthly Income: $4,000
Current Monthly expenses:
Rent (1 bedroom apt, 800 sq/ft) $1260
Pet Rent: $20
Renters Insurance: $20
Groceries: $300
Utilities: $200
Cable: $89
Phone bill: (both on my parents family plan, paying $20 a month until our plans are up)
Car Payment: None, own one 2006 Subaru Legacy
Husband's Monthly Train Ticket: $150
Gas: $80
Car Insurance/Renewal Etc: $110? (My dad takes care of these, I'm sure I'll take if over shortly)
Miscellaneous Pet (Annual Vet Bill Conservatively $1000, $200 for Heartworm/Frontline): $100
"Free" Spending Money: $100 each- includes eating out, drinks, etc.. we stopped tracking the "fun" money, i've seen mixed reviews on doing this, but the headache of arguing about what we're spending this on isn't worth it.
Travel/Weddings: We're in the wedding age, and have a lot of college teammates getting married. Very happy to attend about 3 a year. 2 people, three flights- $600. Hotels for 3 weddings- $300. Gifts for weddings/ones we don't attend $500= $116 a month
Total Monthly Spending: $2,665
Left Over $1,335
Monthly Retirement Savings: $2,263
Total Monthly Savings $3,692
Assets:
My Checking: $7,000
His Checking: $1,800
Our Joint Saving: $5,000
Chase Freedom CC: 0/3000
Total Liquid Assets $13,800
My Roth IRA- 8k
My Roth 401k (6%, 4% company match)- $7,000
His Roth IRA- 0, this will be his first year contributing, plan to do full
His Roth 401k- $4000 (started job in March 2015, contributed 30% of income)
Liabilities: None
I'm open to any advice. I'm pretty happy with our spending vs. saving, but mostly we have goals coming up we want to save for. I will be "retiring" early in about 5 years to be a SAHM, and want to make sure our savings are in order. Husband will be close to maxing out 401k, and we plan on taking my 10k "bonus" to mostly max out our IRAs for the year when combined with the excess 3.5k we have right now after the 10k go into emergency savings.
Our goal was to save up for a 10k "emergency fund", which we want to hopefully never touch so we were glad we still had that after the wedding. Since we pay off our credit card every month and only use it for rewards, I'm fine having this mostly as our short term emergency fund, but would like to keep the 10k in a somewhat liquid form and have been doing research on online money markets, and am open to any advice here.
We are saving for another car (Goal, $10k) for when Husband's job moves from the City to suburbs next year (we are living in suburbs), and also a travel fund of 2k every year on-top of the wedding. This would leave us with about $6,000 at the end of the year for other savings. We're both in the financial field, and like Vanguard Index funds like many others here for that, or should this be going to max out my Roth 401k? Husband has no desire to retire early, so would this money be better off being invested? I kind of also think 10k is a ridiculous high number to have in an "emergency fund" type situation, but Husband had a hard time finding a job during his "first" graduation in May while he took online classes and was unemployed for a bit, so this is the number i got him down to.
Thanks so much for all your answers/advice in advance! Let me know if I'm missing anything!