Thank you all for the helpful and thoughtful replies.
My husband and I talked last night about it and he was like, I've been telling you for years we should cut grocery spending. Says the guy who has been known to be a little loose with the work lunches, but whatever. I'm not keeping score. :-) We spent $225 at Costco/Stop and Shop last weekend, most of it on food. So, my focus is to reign that in and spend no more than $250 on household goods and food for the rest of the month. Baby steps.
- Unfortunately the train is the most economical way for H to get to work and train fare to the city is $$$. He also isn't walking distance from the train station, so he needs to buy a monthly metro card as well. The only way to cut this cost is for him to find a job closer to home. This is his goal, but it's been a challenge given that most of the work in his field is based out of the city.
- I will do some math on Roth vs. 401k. I can take a lot of pre-tax deductions out of my check, but DH (when he's fully employed) has none. It's definitely worth looking into.
@MDM
I'm treating my daycare FSA as a pretax expense and post-tax income. I am not doing so for my healthcare FSA, since healthcare expenses are pretty sporadic.
We do have a state income tax and I took your handy table before and tweaked it to reflect reality. It's copied below. You were pretty much right on, so nice work. :)
My 401k fees are pretty low, I think. -- .02 for the index fund and .07 for the target funds. I'd have to do some serious math to see if we could get it up to 17,500. Do you mean for me to do so in addition to our Roth contributions or in lieu of? And would you suggest then focusing less on saving for future big purchases and more on beefing up retirement contributions?
I think I might be a fence person, but we don't NEED one. We live on a corner lot, so it would be nice to have a little privacy and to secure the little one so that he doesn't run out into traffic. That said, the couple we bought the house from managed to raise two kids without fencing them in.
Here's the table you made with my adjustments. I didn't include the raise that I'll see in my paychecks starting tomorrow because I don't have any pay stubs to work with. I also took the time to average out my actual utility bills from last year, and adjusted it accordingly.
Constant Seasonal Addtl Seasonal Total Annual Avg
Salary/Wages $8,138 $4,168 $12,306 $10,743
Health Insur. $365
401k $654
Health FSA $83
Daycare FSA $416
Train Fare $102
Income after
pre-tax
deduct'ns $6,518 $4,168 $12,306 $9,123
ESPP $132
LTD $32
Adjusted
Gross Income: $6,354 $4,168 $10,522 $8,959
Daycare
reimbursement: $416
Income before
monthly expenses: $6,770 $4,168 $10,522 $9,375
Monthly Expenses:
Federal tax $655 $746.1 $1,401 $1,121
State tax $233.86 $301.6 $535.46 $422
Medicare/SS Tax $210 $441.28 $651 $486
Mortgage (P&I) $1,165
PMI $128
Prop. Tax $458
Home Ins. $69
Daycare $412 $956 $1,368 $1,010
Groceries/Alcohol $600
Dining (Pizza, etc.) $100
Gas/Public Transport$100 $500 $600 $413
Gas/Water/Electric $300
Cable $50
Internet $50
Cell Phones $40
Student Loans $225
Gas conversion loan $303
Car/Life/
Umbrella Insurance $150
Miscellaneous #1 $300
Miscellaneous #2 $300
Roth IRAs $658
529 plan $50
Total Monthly
Expense $6,556 $2,945 $9,501 $8,397
Remainder $214 $1,021 $852
Assets:
Efund $9,000
Other Savings 1,700
Total cash savings $10,700
Company stock $1,386
401k $50,600
Rollover IRAS $105,300
Roths $80,400
Total Investments $237,686
Other
House $44,000 Diff btwn app & loan
2003 Ford Focus $4,000
Liabilities Current Original Prin. Rate Orig. Length
Oil to Gas Conv. Loan $14,600 $14,600 4.49% 5 years (5 to go)
Student Loan 1 $3,752 $11,000 3.38% 15 years (4.5 to go)
Student Loan 2 $12,068 $22,000 3.13% 20 years (9 to go)
Mortgage $256,051 $259,350 3.25% 30 year (29 to go)
*Sorry I can't get the formatting right.