Liberty Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Discussion in a different thread has made me curious about the average yearly living expenses of the members here. I'm sure there's a pretty wide range of lifestyles, and I'm curious to quantify that a little bit (I tried to give a broad range of poll answers yet keep some granularity so not everybody ends up between 50k-100k or whatever). Please don't include taxes, money invested, business-related expenses, etc. Only housing (including mortgage), food, clothes, entertainment, transportation, non-business travel, credit card bills, etc. If you want to give more context, please post about the number of people in your household and what your biggest expenses are. If you are way above or below the average (and thus more interesting! ;) ), consider telling us your secret (how/why do you spend so much/so little?). Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ham Hockers Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Sorry I clicked the wrong button. Kill the 450k expense entry! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
berkshire101 Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 My personal expenses in 2014 was slightly below $7,000. I still live at home so that's why it's somewhat low. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 Sorry I clicked the wrong button. Kill the 450k expense entry! Unfortunately I can't remove just one vote. I see an option to reset everything to zero and nothing else. Maybe mods can edit single votes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oddballstocks Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 My personal expenses in 2014 was slightly below $7,000. I still live at home so that's why it's somewhat low. You still in HS or college I'm assuming? I'd say those aren't "real" living expenses. You're getting a free house/food/utilities etc. It's like saying "my living expenses are almost zero, the prison provides everything!!" There's a real cost to your life it's just you're not paying it yet. No issues with living at home, we all did at some point. But once you graduate and fly the coop I'm sure they'll go up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tede02 Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I think you should clarify whether you want folks to include debt payments (mortgage and student loans for example). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liberty Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 I think you should clarify whether you want folks to include debt payments (mortgage and student loans for example). I think these should be included. Mortgage falls into housing IMO. And student loans, credit cards, etc.. I don't see why that should be excluded, unless it's a loan to invest, or something that is clearly not a "living expense" (education falls in that broad category, I'd say). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrholty Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I haven't done this in depth in a few years but I should. Married with 3 young kids (ages 5, 3, 1) Wife works part time. Kids go to daycare part time. Mortgage - $15k Property Taxes - Just under $6k Daycare - $22k Utilities - $3k Food - $10k Auto - $3k (2 car family - buy used, keep for $10 years and only have payments on one car at a time) Dining Out/Season tickets/regional travel - $8k Other $12k I know we have a large leakage in dining out and other. Its a new years resolution for both of us. Other - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plato1976 Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 which state do you live in? I haven't done this in depth in a few years but I should. Married with 3 young kids (ages 5, 3, 1) Wife works part time. Kids go to daycare part time. Mortgage - $15k Property Taxes - Just under $6k Daycare - $22k Utilities - $3k Food - $10k Auto - $3k (2 car family - buy used, keep for $10 years and only have payments on one car at a time) Dining Out/Season tickets/regional travel - $8k Other $12k I know we have a large leakage in dining out and other. Its a new years resolution for both of us. Other - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ham Hockers Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Biggest expense for me by far is housing. NYC and all. Housing (including utilities) alone puts me in the $100k area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross812 Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I voted 50-59k (apparently we are at 60k). I use Personal Capital to track expenses and haven't looked at all of 2014 yet. I thought this was a good opportunity to take a look. This is just for my wife and I. It's our first year in our fixer upper so hopefully the Home Improvement, General, and Maintenance will fall quite a bit in a couple more years. Mortgage Taxes and Insurance - 14k Groceries/Liquor Store - 7.5k Travel - 5k General - 4.1k <- Mostly house stuff Amazon/Target Restaurants - 4.5k Utilities/Gasoline - 4.4k Clothing - 2.6k Education - 2k Health (deferred HSA) 1.5k Gym - 1.2k Car Insurance - 1k Gifts - 900 Automotive Repairs and Tags - 900 Cable - 500 Movies/Concerts - 500 Pets - 300 Cell Phones - 200 Home Improvement - 5k Home Maintenance - 3.5k Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hielko Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I think I'm in the $20-29K range, with housing being the biggest cost at ~$10K/year. No car, kids or wife and living in a relatively cheap town. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Picasso Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Rent - 18,000 Utilities - 6,000 Fitness - 26,000 Vehicles - 18,000 Dining out - 15,000 I'm sure there's more but I ballparked around $60k and I'm already looking over $83k. I'm sure it's somewhere over $100k when you add in everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgis Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Fitness - 26,000 Is that a goddess level hot personal trainer? :o (I guess I never paid much if anything for fitness ::) ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Picasso Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Fitness - 26,000 Is that a goddess level hot personal trainer? :o (I guess I never paid much if anything for fitness ::) ) Indeed. I actually don't think my expenses are too bad. The fitness aspect will trail down in the future but the benefits are very important in my mind. I know a lot of investors that lose health and never really get to enjoy their wealth. My vehicle expenses are less than half depreciation so my true "steady state" expenses might be under $60k. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jurgis Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Fitness - 26,000 Is that a goddess level hot personal trainer? :o (I guess I never paid much if anything for fitness ::) ) Indeed. /bow :) I settle for Xbox Dance Central :-X (+ TaiChi, Yoga, but all that in total is less than 2K per year. I am value - I mean "cheap" - investor) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scorps Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 My wife and I live in Toronto. Our combined savings/net income ratio is roughly 50-55%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yadayada Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 what the hell dude, 26k$ for fitness??? A gym membership and some protein shakes should only come in about 2-3k$ a year tops. Watch a few youtube video's, and your good to go. You could spend the extra 23k$ on a super nice apartment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innerscorecard Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 I voted 20-29k. My spouse and I currently live in Shanghai, China. An expensive city in a cheap country. Expats here spend a lot of money. So we don't live an expat lifestyle. It's not nice, but we survive. We also don't have expat packages and don't make a lot of money. We live frugally so that we have money to invest so that we aren't living in these conditions forever. The goal is to move to a low-tax and low-cost-of-living jurisdiction in the mid-term future so that we can have a life that is both pleasant and cheap. Right now life is cheap but anything but pleasant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CorpRaider Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 He might go to switzerland with keith richards every year to get all his blood swapped out for fresh stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innerscorecard Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 What about yourself, Liberty, since you asked the question? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanielGMask Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Married, two kids (6 and 3) both in private school. We live in Mexico city and we are above 130k. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest chai Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Mine is at around USD130k. Married, two kids (aged 2 and 3) in private child-care, living in Singapore (as a foreigner but not on an expat package). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sys Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Married, two kids (6 and 3) both in private school. We live in Mexico city and we are above 130k. heh. i used to live near mexico city. but my annual expenses at the time were more like 10k. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanielGMask Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 When was that and where? The school of my kids costs more than that! Married, two kids (6 and 3) both in private school. We live in Mexico city and we are above 130k. heh. i used to live near mexico city. but my annual expenses at the time were more like 10k. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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