Does this budget sound okay?

[AGlimmeringHope]

Here's our projected budget, using the minimum average of DH's paycheck amounts each week. They are generally in this range, with the 3rd check of the month varying greatly (it's a bonus check based on store profits...but what we have budgeted is the lowest that check has *ever* been). Utilities are included in our rent. Medical costs are taken care of, thus not included in our regular budget. Misc. is for anything beyond fixed expenses (loan payments, cc payments, rent, cell phones) including going out, gifts, clothing, etc. All payments made, except for rent, are more than the minimum payment (including our loan and motorcycle payments)

Paycheck 1: $450
-Rent ($300)
-CCs ($50)
-Gas for cars ($40)
-Food ($40)
-Misc ($20)

Paycheck 2: $450
-Cell Phones ($80)
-CCs ($235)
-Car Ins. ($40)
-Gas ($40)
-Food ($40)
-Misc ($15)

Paycheck 3: $750
-Loan payment ($300)
-CCs ($70)
-Motorcycle payment ($185)
-Gas ($70)
-Food ($60)
-Misc ($40)
-Savings ($25)

Paycheck 4: $450
-Debt Repayment ($300...we owe on taxes and tuition. This will later be applied to CCs. Once CCs are all paid off, we will be putting half in savings, half towards our two loans.)
-Gas ($40)
-Food ($75)
-Misc ($35)

If there happens to be five paychecks in a month we'll be doing more in the form of savings and debt repayment, along with any non-essentials we may have been saving up for.

So, we estimate we're bringing in $2,100/month. We have $1,560 towards fixed expenses. $190 towards gas for our cars. $215 for food for 3 of us. $110for Misc. expenses. $25 to savings.

Does this sound good, or should we change it up? And if so, how?

[RiverSky]

Can you truly live off that little money for food? Have you done it before?

I believe most financial advisors suggest you keep track of your spending for a few weeks or months, by writing everything down in a notebook and really analyzing it all. Have you done this, to figure out if you can really live off of that budget?

[mumkenna&lucas]

Food does seem a little low..Is eating out considered in this also?
My other suggestion would be to give what goes into your misc. category a name ($10 clothing, $15 haircuts, $10 gifts, etc)
HTH

[AGlimmeringHope]

Originally Posted by RiverSky

Can you truly live off that little money for food? Have you done it before?

I believe most financial advisors suggest you keep track of your spending for a few weeks or months, by writing everything down in a notebook and really analyzing it all. Have you done this, to figure out if you can really live off of that budget?

We can and have...actually, we've lived off of much less for food when we lived on our own (about $150-200 a month for the three of us...and we ate a lot more processed stuff then as well). A lot of our favorite meals are, thankfully for us, cheap ones. And we split meat costs with my folks, so we spend half on meat as we usually would (we live with them).

We haven't written everything down, but we've gone through our detailed bank registers. It will take a bit more discipline on our parts (which we've been doing good with. Each month we pay attention to our budget we get a little bit better at it!), but it definitely feels do-able to us. The nice thing is with the $300 for debt repayment at the end of the month, if we find out we need a bit more for something else, we can reassign some of that money to other areas. This is just our goal amount for debt repayment. Using this amount it should have us out of CC debt by March and hopefully done with our 'business' loan a few months later. That way we can move out of my parents' house without having to move to a bad neighborhood.

[AGlimmeringHope]

Originally Posted by mumkenna&lucas

Food does seem a little low..Is eating out considered in this also?
My other suggestion would be to give what goes into your misc. category a name ($10 clothing, $15 haircuts, $10 gifts, etc)
HTH

Eating out will be coming from misc, but trips to the gas station for snacks or soda would come from food.

The only reason I didn't label the items in misc is because I wouldn't know what to label it! We don't buy any particular misc. stuff on a regular basis. At least none of the "normal" misc expenses (clothes, gifts, entertainment, haircuts, etc).