Your spending seems pretty off the hook to me. Assuming I'm understanding, these are monthly averages based on yearly totals?
Furniture: $289That's
$3468 in the last 12 months? What did you spend this on, and why couldn't you have gotten the same from freecycle/craigslist?
Gas: $359Tolls: $90Car Maintenance: $266Car Registration/Inspection/Taxes: $29Car Insurance: $265Total Commuting Monthly: $1009Total Commuting Yearly: $12,108Just for perspective, that's over twice my rent cost, monthly. You could house my DH and I twiceover for a year.
It's also almost 50% of my yearly income. You could FIRE me in 17 years.
I would take the opportunity of DH finding a new job to seriously slash this, even if it means taking less pay closer to home. Remember, the IRS says it's
$0.51/mi to drive.
Invested over 10 years, this would be:
$190,274Invested over 25 years, by the time your current resident is graduating college, it would be:
$750,246http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/retirement/roi-calculator.aspxGroceries: $226Good job here!
Restaurants: $221Questionable here.
From my perspective, this is five fancy $50 Outback Steakhouse dinners for two each month, including glass of wine.
It's up to 20 $10.50 Chic-Fil-A/Taco Bell splurges for two, per month.
Phone: $115This seems pretty expensive. Have you read the guide?
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/communications-tech-son-of-the-superguide!/Clothing: $61That's
one new shirt from a fancy place like Dress Barn, every month.
Twelve new shirts
per year.
That's
three new pairs of pants from the clearance rack at Eddie Bauer, every month.
36 new pairs of pants
per year.
That's
6-25 pieces of clothing from a thrift store, per month.
72-300 pieces of clothing
per year, perhaps almost enough to never do laundry (huge savings!!).
If a package of Dickey's brand men's socks is
$12, and comes with
6 pairs, that's
366 new pairs of socks
per year. You wouldn't even have to wash them.
If a package of white women's underwear is
$14, and comes with
10 pairs, that's
522 new pairs of women's underwear
per year.
And, apparently all this excess underwear isn't included in your personal spending...
Personal Spending Money: $341Entertainment: $95Vacation/Travel: $207Total Frivolities per Month: $643Total Frivolities per Year: $7716Once again, this could house DH and I for a year. Famously, this is about what Jacob of ERE spends in his entire year of living expenses. Considering the variety of all the other categories you've listed, it's a little beyond me what "spending money" even entails.
Not Very Hardcore Monthly Suggested Cutbacks/Savings: Car by 50%: $504.50Restaurants by 100%: $221.00Phone by 50%: $57.50Clothing by 100%: $61.00"Spending" by 66%: $214.333 $428.666 (Edit: Oops!!! Messed up some math in here... )
Total Monthly Savings: $1058.33 1272.66 Total Yearly Savings: $12,699.96 $15,272If invested instead...
Over 10 years: $239,995Over 25 years: $946,296Over 35 years: $1,899,470http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/retirement/roi-calculator.aspxAbout Retirement:Your current yearly expenses/spending times 25 is
$1,784,400Suggested spending with cutbacks, yearly times 25 is
$1,466,901 $1,402,602In other words, you would need
$381,798.00 less to retire on, just by making small changes in luxury spending/commuting only.
About Job Security:If you lost your O&G job tomorrow, and DH was unable to find work, your current non-property assets would last you 81.88 months, or 6.8 years. That's pretty good.
If you made the small suggested changes to monthly spending, your current non-property assets would last you 99.61 months, or 8.3 years.
Job security wouldn't really be my concern here. If you can't find a job in 6-8 years, something is wrong-o.
Seriously, though, I think you could easily cut back by
$18,816 per year and still lead happy, healthy, eventful, fancy and luxurious lives, and you wouldn't even have to sell your house to do it.
http://affordanything.com/2014/12/17/take-the-one-percent-challenge/Hopefully this helps provide some perspective on your spending. Happy new year, by the way! :)
P.S. How big is your house that it has a
separate upstairs A/C unit? When is the downstairs A/C unit going to blow? Expensiiiive.
Do you live in a mansion? How many bedrooms does it have? Can you rent them out? Opportunity costs!
http://affordanything.com/2014/09/02/how-i-earned-an-extra-40800-in-two-years/