Roast my budget and help me budget better, so that I may save more. I'm in my late 30s, single, no kids/pets and live alone.
Rent+utilities – $1500
Car insurance – $225
Car payment – $493
Subscriptions – $72
Household items – $100
Cell – $41
Gym -$11
Beauty – $10
Fun – $50
Medical – $25
Groceries – $175
Eating out/coffee – $50
Gas – $123
Me – $25
Clothes/shoes – $50
Savings – $50
Roast my spending habits – 3k/month
byu/LocalTypical inFrugal
Posted by LocalTypical
32 Comments
You are paying too much for coffee but under eating.
Should be 400 plus for food
Fun – $50
Like neflix and game pass?
Ngl your spending habits look fine but the savings is really low considering your age and without context (i.e. income). Car payment is higher than I’d be comfortable with but our situations are vastly different.
With your car insurance, are you paying monthly or 6 months at a time?
Edit to add: what is the difference between “me” and “fun” money?
Edit again: OP is a bot.
Car payment – $493
Unless you want to impress someone,
You should not drive new car
Realistically, you live a pretty spartan lifestyle already, but it’s easy to see that the bulk of your money you can save lies in your car and insurance payment. How much do you have left on your car payment currently? How much is your car worth? Do you live in a city with strong public transit?
If you’re able to sell your car and use the proceeds to buy a much older but reliable car, that’s where you can save your money.
What household items require 100$ a month? That’s more than I spend on my household items and my cats in a month.
Otherwise, you can consider picking up a side hustle.
Your car payment and car insurance are really the only things that seem high to me.
How long until the cat is paid off?
When was the last time you called around getting insurance quotes? You might be able to save money.
Edit – Actually what household items are you buying for $100 *every month*? I don’t think I even really spend that in a year as a single no kids person.
I assume this is monthly. Start with the biggest expenses and work down, seeing if you can reduce anything with while receiving similar benefits (better value). For example
$225 * 12 = $2700/year on car insurance? That sounds excessive to me for a person in late 30s, unless you have unique history such as accidents on record or own extremely expensive to repair car. You might compare prices with other insurances and review what is driving up the cost, such as having a very low deductible.
$175 per month on groceries — This sounds quite low to me, yet you also aren’t spending much on eating out. Is something not being reported?
$100 per month on household items — Why do you need $100 worth of household items each month? Is this part of the groceries, such as pantry items?
$72 per month on subscriptions? What are you subscribing to and do you need/use them.
Where do you get gym access for only $11 a month? I can’t get a gym membership for less than $100 in my area, and it comes with nothing but equipment.
For rent+utilities, I’m assuming this includes internet. It’s a small margin, but is your phone plan unlimited? What is your monthly data usage, and could you get away with a more humble plan?
Do you need to spend on new clothing / shoes every month? if you take care of them it will last you, but it’s an understandable expense I think.
and what subscriptions do you have?
Those are the things that stick out to me. I am curious what car you have and how long until it’s paid off, though I’m not knowledgeable about it.
This you cant change.
Rent+utilities – $1500
Can you look for cheaper insurance. You’re paying the same amount I do with two full coverage cars.
Car insurance – $225
Can’t change.
Car payment – $493
How many subscriptions do you have pick one a month
Subscriptions – $72
What is in this? Can you look at generics?
Household items – $100
Once again look for a cheaper option but tbh it’s not bad.
Cell – $41
Not bad but are you using it at least once a week?
Gym -$11
Don’t change this. Feeling good is important.
Beauty – $10
Again not bad.
Fun – $50
Is this insurance? If so don’t change it.
Medical – $25
Not bad. Check to see if you’re getting store brand and look around for cheaper stores.
Groceries – $175
Not bad. Again happiness is important too
Eating out/coffee – $50
Check your route to work/school and see if there’s cheaper gas. Make attempts to route what your doing to reduce how much your driving.
Gas – $123
What is this??
Me – $25
Okay not bad.
Clothes/shoes – $50
Keep this up little by little.
Savings – $50
Car and insurance is your problem. Beater cars are unbeatable. I would also say rent, but i don’t know the average price of where you live
Car insurance seems rather high. We pay $670 every 6 months for collision and comprehensive insurance – $500k bodily injury. You’ll probably find cheaper insurance than what we’re paying since I’ve not switched insurance in a while.
Are you a runner? You spend a consistent $50 a month on clothes?
I have eaten out less the entire year than you do in a month.
that’s A LOT on subscriptions
How do you spend that little on groceries?
You probably don’t need all those subscriptions.
Do you really use the gym ? Lots of people don’t
Edit: Forgot 2. The list is long, & I am old…lol
Why do you need new clothes & shoes every month ?
Same for household items…every month ?
The older I get the more Im fine with a car payment on a newer and reliable vehicle . I want reliability more than I need frugality and in my younger years beater cars often came with a lack of dependability and high repair bills that wipe savings right out. A newer model will have less issues if you buy the right car and I think $500 is just where payments are these days, sadly. I would suggest trying to pay it off faster so you can ride that sweet no payment time in between this car and the next. Id trim here and there off subscriptions, me, food, household
Might be some cheaper phone planes
So the monthly buget comes out to $3000 a month. The suggestions I’d give are:
Rent/utilities – Any chance of looking for a roommate to cut cost? Not sure where you live so your current situation may not be the best.
Car insurance – Call around and get quotes from different insurance agencies. Look into Defensive Driving course, as some states can give you discounts after taking this online.
Car payment -What car / model / interest payment? Any possibility of downgrading to save money on your monthly payment on this.
Subscription – Look at what you have and cancel one or two things?
Instead of a budgeting issue, might be an income issue. Look into advancing your career in order to get a higher income. If not, are there opportunies to get an evening / weekend job, side hussles, seasonal work or overtime at your current job?
I pay $250 on insurance for three vehicles! Compared to mine your cost is high. Also other factors might be that two vehicles are on liability and one is full coverage. And all drivers are over 25. And I’m in TX.
Car payment is not bad depending on your car type but also downsizing would be a good thing. You’ll save on gas too!
Since monthly income was not given, there’s not much more I can recommend as far as a better budget. Maybe increase savings? You certainly don’t seem to spend a whole lot on eating out either.
(you said to roast, personally if it makes you happy and you can afford it while hitting your goals who is anyone to judge)
Clothes/Shoes – why is this $50 every month? Even as a runner you don’t need to spend $600 a year on shoes and why would you need that much new clothes as an adult that’s done growing.
Household Items – $100 is steep. A bottle of disinfectant should last at least a few months and is $1.50 on sale. A bottle of laundry detergent and box of dishwasher powder could last a year if you use appropriate amounts (1.5tsp for dishwasher, 2tbs for washer) and those should run you less than $20. You can do towels/sponges for most every you use paper towels for and toilet paper should be bought for bulk and last half a year at least.
Car Payment – that’s a lot for someone only saving $50. How much was it? You can get a reliable car for 10k.
Subscriptions – pick one subscription to be active at a time, pocket the other $50
I simply do not believe your food budget. You have to be spending more
Instead of living alone, I’d get roommates to lower my rent, And look for a different car insurance (geicko maybe?), 225 seems very high. Put the difference towards savings so you can one day buy a place of your own.
Cut the streaming, use Tubi and Pluto instead.
That money needs to go to savings at your age. Check your car interest rate. If it is above 4%, try to pay it off asap. HYS accounts and cds pay better than that.
Your household items seem high. Buy on sale, add water to concentrated soaps, detergents, and cleaners. Use washcloths instead of paper towels at most all things non pet related.
Eating out budget is great. Buy gift cards at a discount warehouse for 20% or more off if you are going to chains. Take advantage of Wednesday specials at most places. Outback used to have a beer, sirloin, and side for 12.99 on Wednesdays.
Don’t do coffee out. The markup is about 300-500% compared to making at home, even as a specialty. Better to have a steak with a friend than 2 coffees out.
Your fun and grocery budget is highly suspicious
Stop allocating money on nonessential catagories.
Fun, eating out, beauty, subscriptions, ‘me’ and gym and household items could all be cut out and moved to savings.
You should put more into beauty because it isn’t paying off
Not the worst ever but you could trim things here and there. It’s probably obvious what those are (though wtf is “me”?). One thing you could do is rotate subscriptions so you only have one on at a time. One month netflix then turn it off, next month hulu or whatever you like. I mostly just use youtube and only turn on netflix one month a year and catch up on everything.
Also shop around for better car insurance.
It seems better for you to increase your income, because saving only $50 per month is too low.
Me, fun, eating out, clothing, household items are categories I would look at closely and cut consolidate. Need to check your grocery bill also. One person seems high
There’s a few things:
Car insurance seems high. Have you checked around to see if another company will give you a lower price?
Savings seems low–especially if that’s all your saving.
Subscriptions seems high. It’s higher than your monthly listed savings. Maybe cut down on them or start rotating subscriptions.
Medical seems very low as does groceries.
The gym at the community center is pretty cheap
Try to bump up your savings. How much do you pay for your utilities vs. rent? You could probably 5x your savings when switching energy and internet