[mommariffic]

I'm wondering what your budget is in terms of the following for the week:

food, activities for the kids, gas, etc...

I'm trying to limit myself and I'm struggling!

 

[BetsyS]

My kids are really little, and a $1 ice cream from Sonic is a HUGE treat. So, with that in mind...

$20 cash--to be used for whatever I want. Every other week (or so), I go to lunch with my mom, which is included here. It also includes anything I want for me (crafting, makeup, etc), and anything extra for the boys (new toys, meuseum entrance, etc).

$75/week for groceries

I budget myself one fill-up every 2 weeks for gas. That gets me about 400 miles, which works for my lifestyle as a SAHM. There are weeks that I realize early on that I've been running around too much, and I cut back. It's a game to keep this under budget.

MOPS. I do this twice a month Sept-May. I pay $14/meeting for childcare (3 hours for 2 kids). This is my 2 year old's only paid for/structured activity. He doesn't do Gymboree or Little Gym or gymnastics or anything. I pay all this upfront out of our regular budget, as a "mops" line item. The same would be true for whatever structured program I chose to put him in.

 

[CarrieMF]

I don't have a weekly budget, I budget for twice a month.

Gas is a once a month bill, budget is $250

Kids activities I pay for in September, all at once so I have no monthly budget for that.

Food(including toiletries & stuff like that) is about $400 twice a month, but I usually go over

Power/Gas is $250/month.

All of our other bills are pretty set in what we have to pay, some get paid the 15th others the 31st.

What we put onto our HELOC(we don't have a mortgage) has been lower but that's because I've been in physiotherapy for 8 weeks so I've taken that $400ish/month from what we put onto that. We're still paying more than the interest on the HELOC

 

[LilyGrace]

Food - $125
Activities/allowance/kid stuff - $25
Gas - $20
Grown ups allowances - $50

The rest goes toward savings, funds, and bills.

 

[Drummer's Wife]

the only thing that really applies is food, and it's about $200-250 a week.

We don't pay out of pocket for gasoline and the only kid activity outside of school field trips that occur on a regular basis is rock climbing -- but we also get that for free through a friend.

In the summer they will have more going on, but I don't know how much it would cost per week.

Oh, DH spends money on fast food for lunches during the week and some other random things may come up but it's probably $50-100 max.

I'd say minus housing and all other bills, we spend about $300 per week.

 

[Knittin' in the Shade]

Our kids' activities are piano lessons (once a week), church group (one weeknight, and then sunday mornings) and the a sport - right now it's baseball. THe sport is seasonal and paid in one lump sum - for the three older guys this year it was $140, and that's for 3 months. Piano is $65/wk for three kids' lessons. Other than those, we find FREE activities, LOL! We get a membership to the Boonshoft museum from Dh grandparents every year, and it's reciprocal to all our local museums (art, natural science, franklin institute and the zoo) so we do those frequently (for free). Otherwise, we do lots of local parks and playgrounds. In summer, our activity is the neighborhood pool, and for the family membership that covers all 6 of us, it's $650 this year

: We literally live at the pool from 12-6 every single day, so it's worth it for us - and saves money on the electric bill since we keep the a/c set much higher when we're not at home.

Gas for me is about $10-15 a week, I don't do a ton of driving and what I do is local (less than 5 miles from home - to grocery store, etc) We try to walk a lot, but when you're grocery shopping for a family of 6 for hte week, you can't exactly cart that home on a walk, LOL!

Groceries we've just reduced our budget to $650/month, this includes toiletries, cleaning, etc. In the summer that will go down as we garden and get a lot of produce from our garden.

Dh and I each have $50 "blow" money per month.

 

[mommariffic]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who spends more than $100 per week on food. Seriously, I am lucky when I spend less than $200 and there's only three of us...

The one good thing is we rarely eat out, and I cook all our meals here since we both work from home, and are total hermits.

 

[Village Mama]

Our weekly groceries/toiletries come to about 200 dollars( gluten/ casien/dye/ preservative free) but we could spend about 100 more a week if we had it. I might spend 5 bucks a week at the thrift store depending on what we need and if I find it. I homeschool the boys/ clothe everyone and furnish the house by thrifting, so it may be more if we find a load of clothes or a bunch of canning jars or something. Gas for hubbys work is about 20 bucks a week. I don't drive and try to stay in the village. One round trip transit ride for the two boys and I is 8 bucks!! We might take the bus once a month. I usually try to time it so that papa can pick us up on the way home from work to save on half of the bus fare. We don't eat out ever but I get the boys a .50 cent chocolate every Friday at the organic chocolate shop in town... one for papa and I if we can afford it. We are a pretty active family, but the things we choose are free past the initial purchase of , say, a bike! Other than that we garden( seed saving is helping with that budget) hike, forage and attend free community events.

 

[soccermama]

$80-85 per week for groceries. $100-$150 for personal expenditures, items for our DS (clothing, activities, etc.,) H and I only go out to dinner once or twice a month and we usually spend $100 each time. Everything else goes towards bills, DS's 529, and savings.

 

[SAHDS]

It'd be too hard to make a weekly budget because most activities (for the kids) are in bulk.

- zoo membership is $150/year ($3/week)

- DS's baseball and DD's softball were $125 each (not including equipment) for 3 months ($20/week)

- swim lessons are $65/month ($16/week)

- Scouts (for both) is maybe $5-10/month (in dues and extra activity fees) not including initial uniform cost ($2/week)

- Piano (on hiatus, just too busy right now) is dirt cheap because it's family

Gas for the week, maybe $20 (more if I'm running into town - 30 minutes away plus bridge toll)

Groceries for the week $200-250

eating out for the week $25 (roughly)

extras (we went to the Spring fair last week - $80, same day was a b-day party $40 for gift and gas)

What about vacations and trips (big vacations, day trips, camping trips/overnight trips)? How do I include those?

So, basically, I have absolutely no idea and that's why I am rubbish with a budget.

 

[lil_earthmomma]

Our monthly envelopes look like this:

$400 for groceries:
$100 for meat and bulk pantry items at beginning of month
$75 per week for fresh veg, fruits, dairy
$200 for gas
$200 spending

Our spending covers EVERYTHING. Any eating out we might do, day trips with the kiddos, things we want. So we have to be smart, but it's working out just fine.

(For Ds's bday when people asked what to buy, I asked for experiences instead of toys. He received a zoo pass, a pass to this awesome farm/park, and some other day trip passes.

 

[soccermama]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lil_earthmomma Our monthly envelopes look like this: $400 for groceries: $100 for meat and bulk pantry items at beginning of month $75 per week for fresh veg, fruits, dairy $200 for gas $200 spending Our spending covers EVERYTHING. Any eating out we might do, day trips with the kiddos, things we want. So we have to be smart, but it's working out just fine. (For Ds's bday when people asked what to buy, I asked for experiences instead of toys. He received a zoo pass, a pass to this awesome farm/park, and some other day trip passes.

I really like what you told your friends/family what to get for DS's birthday. May I borrow/steal that idea?

 

[panamama]

hhhmmm...it's never even occured to me to do a weekly budget. that's something to consider. almost everything is either monthly, quarterly or annually paid. i think the only exceptions are food and gas?

food $150-200 week
gas $50-75 week

there's just me and DS (but DS eats enough for 2 more people!).

 

[youngwife]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mommariffic I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who spends more than $100 per week on food. Seriously, I am lucky when I spend less than $200 and there's only three of us... The one good thing is we rarely eat out, and I cook all our meals here since we both work from home, and are total hermits.

I hear ya! We are a family of eight, and none of them are "picky" eaters. So, it's a struggle for me to keep our food/necessities budget at $250/week. It just seems to be so much for expensive to live these days.

 

[dsaucone]

Weekly, um whatever DH's paycheck is. He gets paid weekly and depending on if he made $100 or $300 our budget is quite flexible. All our bills and subscriptions (and savings) are paid monthly out of my paycheck. Food/Gas/Extras are included in DH's paycheck.

Food = $75ish
Gas = $20ish
Extra = $whatever's left over

For example he got $161 today. $15 went to pay back the bank account because I didn't have cash on me and used my debit to get gas last week. So that's $146. I used $83 on groceries and I'm good on gas until mid next week. What's left will be used for DH's haircut and go towards a picnic table which will hopefully be bought next week.

I'm not a very structured person so this works best for us. Go with the flow. And when the cash stops flowing we stop spending.

 

[JamieCatheryn]

$120 food and household goods
$20 some weeks for a meal from out
$18 a week on gas
$15 for DH's random purchases (salads, coffee, and fast food?)
zoo membership divides down to $1.35 a week

 

[lil_earthmomma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by soccermama I really like what you told your friends/family what to get for DS's birthday. May I borrow/steal that idea?

Totally!!!

Some people were a little

: because they had to do some creative thinking,

but most people got right into it!

 

[Poddi]

Our budget is for 6 months per cycle. That's when taxes, insurance, and many other bills are due. Some of our bills come every two months, some come every 3 months, some every 6 months. DH and I decided 6 months is good for budget calculations. I can only tell the grocery and gas as I don't manage the other expenses. My grocery and household budget is $4000 cdn for every six months, that would be about $150 per week I think. We're a family of 3 adults and two kids. This include packed lunch for everybody, and doesn't include eating out.

We spend about $120 cdn per month on gas, so that's about $30 per week.

 

[lilyka]

about $200 A week for all of that. I spend about $10 on gas and the rest falls into the grocery/entertainment/field trip/fun budget.

 

[Porcelain Interior]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mommariffic I'm wondering what your budget is in terms of the following for the week: food- $100 activities for the kidswell we aren't in anything that costs money right now, but when we do dance it's like 5 bucks a week, gas10 dollars- of course that's all the gas we use period including my husband driving to work., etc... I'm trying to limit myself and I'm struggling!

I'm not sure what you meant, but I don't spend money when I take my kids out. We just choose to do things that don't cost money. So if I go to the park I don't stop for ice cream or take them out to lunch. We just go to the park.

We don't really even do a weekly budget, we have x amount for gas per pay check (bi-weekly), and x amount for food per paycheck, and x amount of "blow money" which for me would have to be used if I wanted to spend money while we were out and about and I give myself $20 a month for purely blowing on myself. I usually end up buying groceries or candy with it though.

I guess we live on the "down low".

I also confess to hating being out and about just because it ends up causing budget blow outs.

ETA, I don't think you can use our amounts to compare yourself as we all have different salaries to work with.

If we were rather wealthy my kids would have a few more lessons, and I would probably have a wicked book buying habit.