We bought our new place in June of this year. Its a proper suburb. 30-45mins to downtown. Greater Houston area. Our new house is basically the median price, under 3000sqft with a decent back yard but nothing special. Its in an older neighborhood and it needed work when we bought it.
We purchased our first house in 2016 for 191 at 3.25% interest with 3.5% down. Homeowners insurance was like $1200/year. sold it this year for $295ish and homeowners insurance on the same house was at $4800/year. Bought our new house in June of this year for $425 at 6.7% interest and put 80k down (part of the equity we had in the old house we used for the down payment and the rest we put in our savings/emergency fund because I don't have faith in the booming economy right now).
If I were starting out again where I was in 2016 (i.e. same salary as I made in 2016 but today), I would not be able to buy my old house. Its crazy.
I personally feel like we are due for a reconning on all this, the house prices, insurance, and property taxes are not sustainable. The market is starting to reflect that too.
When we were looking at houses, there were several that had been on the market for over a year because they were overpriced by 20-30%. Our old house was not worth 300k to me, it was to the market and the buyer but the people who bought and lived in that neighborhood pre covid are different than the new buyers and that isn't a good thing imo.
Covid and post covid, used cars are insane. When I bought that car, I could have gotten a 2 year old version of it with 70k miles on it for 27k or a new one for 30. The loan was 0.9% so it didn't make any sense to get the used one.
You should have read the rest, the car is paid off. You can do that if you are responsible with your money. That new car that I bought in 2019 was because I was driving 40k miles per year for work at the time and I needed something reliable after my last car started showing its age and left me stranded a couple times. It had 175k miles on it when I sold it after having 3 water pumps, 2 thermostats, 4 high pressure fuel pumps, a radiator, several cooling hoses, an oil cooler, and a clutch replaced, all done myself. The mid 2000s minis were not reliable cars out of warranty.
People who have not looked for apartments or houses right now have no idea what the true cost is. We just moved and to rent a house in our old neighborhood (1700sqft, 2 car garage, nice suburb but build in the 80s, near the freeway) is $2100/month. The first apartment I rented out of college is now $1500/month and it was a 1 bedroom 650sqft. Not luxury or anything, a normal inner city apartment.
I'm sorry to hear that. I was there 3 years ago on a smaller budget. I thought we were in a decent spot financially and then we had our first kid (planned) and my partner stayed home with our baby. Our income went down by roughly a third overnight and we had a $10k delivery bill and all the other new baby stuff. We burned though our savings in about 9 months even though I was working. I almost opted to sell my car but I was very fortunate to find a new job making about 30% more and we recovered. The stress in that situation is immense and I hope you find a way out.
I'll have to look into it. Last I checked, att, tmo, and Xfinity were all about the same for a 2 line unlimited plan. We talked about doing google fi a few years back but they were limited on devices.
HEB is significantly more than Aldi where we do most of our shopping. We do a HEB trip roughly once a month or every other month to get the stuff Aldi doesn't carry.
I won't argue the climate benefits nor the moral or ethical implications of consuming animal products because frankly, those are justified. Strictly budget wise, beans vs chickin is marginal in percentage which is what the post was about.
Loads of people in this thread said "this is me" or "this isn't me" but no one else shared their itemized budget.
Yeah, clean record for 8+ years I am older than 35. Its gotta partially be the area. We got a homeowners insurance quote on one of the houses we looked at, regular house, $400k price, they wanted $16k per year in homeowners insurance... Not in a flood zone, no historical damage, no extra risk factors.
The car are all fully paid for and have been for a while. Only one gets driven at a time and my commute is about 5 miles. The collective value of the cars is less than 35k. Other than my wrx, the others have 250k+ miles.
I won't argue on the house, I will also say I don't really care. We aren't strapped for money, our needs are met, we contribute to savings at a good rate, and when interest rates drop we will refinance the house which will free up ~$600/month or we will reduce the loan term. Our interest rate went from 2.25 to 6.7 percent when we moved.
Its real easy to say "your house is too big' without knowing anything about where someone lives or their circumstances.
My bad, its $185/month, just checked. The drivers, comprehensive coverage, my old truck, wife's old suv, and my wrx. Progressive was cheaper by a significant margin vs state farm.
I mean, if you don't have a choice, you make it stretch or you go hungry. There is a big difference between a poverty budget and something "average" though.
I just don't consider spending at the level we do to be particularly extravagant and it is still expensive now.
Couple of observations. I am the sole earner in our house. I am fortunate that I make about $140k and we live suburban Texas. In our family of 4 our basic expenses are as follows.
Mortgage is $2100/ month
Homeowners insurance $400/ month
Property tax $200/month
Car insurance $185/month
Electricity $250/month (average)
Natural gas $40/month
Water+trash $200/month
Internet $90/month
Streaming (disney/netflix/audible) $45/month
Groceries $400-600/month
Gas $200/month
Toll roads $50-100/month
Cell phone $200/month
Coffee once a week $40/month
Date night food (once a week) $500/month
Fucking health insurance for the family is $750/month (my contribution, my employer pays the majority)
Roughly $6250/month give or take.
We don't have consumer debt, no car notes, no child care (stay at home parent cares for the kids) no daycare, and no paid child activities.
That is just our fixed expenses, something always comes up so obviously there is more but its inconsistent.
My car is a 2019 wrx that was $30k we paid it off last year but the note on that was $470/month. I couldn't get that car for that price today.
We have an older suv for my partner and I have an old pickup that sits unused unless we need to make a hardware run, those vehicles are paid for, no loans and have been for 10+ years.
Our last house was purchased for $191k in 2016 and we sold it for $295k this past year.
Our insurance went from $1200/year to $4800 per year on that house before we sold it. Similar thing with property taxes.
Unless you have managed a 10% return or salary increase, your money doesn't go as far as it used to.
I am happy to pay my fair share of taxes. For what I am paid, I feel like its reasonable to contribute more in taxes based on my earnings, but as a result, my take home is obviously not $140k. So when you figure fixed expenses are ~$75k, plus my 401k contributions, savings for my kids college fund, and incidentals for stuff like car tires, birthdays, christmas, house repairs, medical expenses, etc, its relatively easy to eat up the remainder of that pool.
I want to see a budget of $200/month on food. I have a family of 4 and shopping at aldi on what I consider a reasonable budget (getting fresh fruits/veggies, chicken breasts, some frozen fruits/veggies, cereal, pasta, rice, eggs, and bread for a week is $100+ I am sure I could cut cost some but nothing we are spending on is crazy.
We bought our new place in June of this year. Its a proper suburb. 30-45mins to downtown. Greater Houston area. Our new house is basically the median price, under 3000sqft with a decent back yard but nothing special. Its in an older neighborhood and it needed work when we bought it.
We purchased our first house in 2016 for 191 at 3.25% interest with 3.5% down. Homeowners insurance was like $1200/year. sold it this year for $295ish and homeowners insurance on the same house was at $4800/year. Bought our new house in June of this year for $425 at 6.7% interest and put 80k down (part of the equity we had in the old house we used for the down payment and the rest we put in our savings/emergency fund because I don't have faith in the booming economy right now).
If I were starting out again where I was in 2016 (i.e. same salary as I made in 2016 but today), I would not be able to buy my old house. Its crazy.
I personally feel like we are due for a reconning on all this, the house prices, insurance, and property taxes are not sustainable. The market is starting to reflect that too.
When we were looking at houses, there were several that had been on the market for over a year because they were overpriced by 20-30%. Our old house was not worth 300k to me, it was to the market and the buyer but the people who bought and lived in that neighborhood pre covid are different than the new buyers and that isn't a good thing imo.