2009-2010 Family budget -US $65 K

Pictures tell thousand words, so I simply present all information in a table and a graph with some notes to them:

First of all I want to give a brief explanation of breakdown:

Accommodation – we have got no mortgage so we are renting a two-bedroom apartment.

Bills – all bills related to maintaining apartments – electricity, heating, land line phone, internet, etc..

Kindergarten  - we both work, so the child has to go to a kindergarten. Its  actually enjoys it quite a lot, to socialize with friends and be among kids of the same age.

Car insurance – speak to itself and everything related to car maintenance.

Miscell  -  gifts to relatives and friends,  haircuts,  cleaners and wax for our car, etc..

Drugs -  primarily mouth healthcare products, occasional prescriptions.

Medical insurance - speak to itself. It is provided be the employer, so we only have to pay co-pay, dental is not included.

Food – We separated our food from the child, as its primarily consumes organic only. We thought it would be a good start to build a strong foundation.

Child –  everything related to it – food, clothes, toys..

Gas – idea was to look how much to we spend on gasoline and how it weight in overall budget. I know that gas price affects other items as well, but we just thought it would be nice to count it separately.

Clothes, things - speak to itself.

Joy – occasional days away and vacations, it is also include all other expenditures – cinema, restaurants, parks, etc..

Home -  everything we need to buy to maintain our living in it.

Comms -  mobiles, phone cards.

Alcohol –  it is good to count, what we are spending on it. Apart from special occasions we tend to limit ourselves to $20 per bottle of wine max.

Breakdown:

On Average we are spending US $ 5.4 K a month after taxes.

We enjoyed couple of the trips - X-mass 2009 to New York & Niagara falls in the summer - this would be  US $4.5 K out of the US $8.7 K we spent last year on Joy.

I bought a new laptop for myself, which cost me US $2 K -  40% of miscellaneous.

If you really think of it we do not have much control over expenses apart from Joy, Alcohol and Miscellaneous, which represent 23% of all expenses. The rest of them more or less fixed.

The goal for 2011 is to keep it equal of less than US $65 K a year.