How on Earth are You Living on $1,800 a Month?

On my weekly Pinterest surf I came across a promising pin, "Living on $1,800 a month budget." It featured a picture of a woman holding a baby with the implication that $1,800 covered the budget for a young family. This, of course, made me click on it immediately because inquiring minds want to know. Just how *DO* you live on a budget of $1,800 a month? I mean clearly, you must not have many bills (and if that's the case I am seriously envious.)

--

I clicked over to the blog where they listed their monthly expenses:

1. Mortgage/Rent.......$521
2. Utilities...................$300
3. TV + Internet..........$170
4. Health Insurance.....$35 (not a typo)
5. Car Insurance..........$35
6. Pets..........................$55
7. Credit Cards............$190
8. Gas..........................$40
9. Groceries.................$400
10. Savings....................$10
11. Unexpected costs....$214

Total monthly expenditures: $1,586

Without making judgments, here is the comparison to what we pay each month for these things:

1. Mortgage.................$893 (with homeowners insurance & property taxes bundled in)
2. Utilities....................$200-ish (gas, electric, water/sewer/trash)
3. Cell phones..............$80 (for 2 lines)
4. Internet (no TV).......$34
5. Health Insurance......$240 (for 2 adults)
6. Car Insurance...........$76 (for 1 car)
7. Pets...........................$100
8. Credit Cards.............$300 (about $100 over the minimum payments)
9. Student loans............$564 (for 2 people with graduate degrees)
10. Gas...........................$35
11. Groceries..................$350
12. Savings.....................$150
13. Medical bills.............$250
14. Entertainment............$20 (Netflix + Amazon Prime)

Total monthly expenditures: $3,296

Granted, we're older than the young family and probably have more credit card debt, definitely more medical issues—not to mention that we got graduate degrees that necessitated even more in the way of student loan debt.

We could probably save a little money on car insurance—but live in a no fault state in which, in the past 5 years, we've been rear-ended twice (while at stop lights). So $70-ish is what we're stuck with until those accidents clear.

I priced out the "cheaper" cell services (Republic Wireless, et. al) and for our two phones, the cost would be about the same ($37-$42 each). The only way we get cheaper service is to reduce our data plan down to nothing and/or get flip phones—which neither of us is willing to do at this point.

We're working to pay the credit card debt off, but right now we have about $10k in debt, which is about the national average. I won't go into how much student loan debt we have.

And then there are the medical bills, that even with insurance, cost us about $8,000 a year (and we're both relatively healthy). This is just the reality when you've had cancer and are of an aging populace (read: non-millennials).

So, while I envy the young couple their $1,500 in monthly expenditures, the truth is, until we shave down our debt, our monthly budget will stay around $3,000-$3,300 (which is why I write about all the other stuff we do to cut our costs).