*****There is an updated version of this post for 2015. Please click here to read our 2015 One-Income Budget for Our Family of Four post! 🙂 *****
To be 100% honest with you, I’m really nervous about making this post public. Why? Because I’m sharing our honest-to-goodness real budget and our real numbers. Why am I sharing such personal information? Because, I want others to know how we survive as a family of four on an income less than $58k.
Without further adieu, here are our numbers based on our monthly averages:
Monthly Income: $2,784
Tahoe Payment: $424
Student Loan Payment: $286
Mortgage Payment: $704
Auto Insurance Payment: $118
Netflix: $8
Trash: $13
Water: $31
Power: $120
Gas: $55
Groceries: $720
Phone Bill: $70
Savings: $160
Fuel: $75
Amount Left Over: $0
All of my above numbers are averages based on our monthly payments and monthly income. It is important to note that in our grocery budget, I include diapers, wipes, formula, toiletries, and dog food. I know that some prefer to separate these items into different categories.
One of our goals for 2014 is to get rid of my Tahoe in order to not have that payment anymore. We’ve run into a few stumbling blocks with that. According to KBB, Edmond’s, and Black Book, we look to make a profit on our Tahoe if we trade-in or sell in a private sale. However, we are learning that those sites are way off. We have not found anyone willing to even match what we owe on the Tahoe. Pretty defeating. We’re still holding out hope that my hubs can use his natural gift of gab to get us where we need to be. It would just be amazing to not have that payment anymore. (My Tahoe is a Hybrid which is the reason why I only spend around $75 a month for gas)
Another important thing to note, is that my hubs’ truck is paid for and his company pays for his fuel since he uses it for work. Part of our monthly savings goes towards our auto account for things like new tires, car repairs, or anything else related to auto expenses.
We have no credit cards. We paid off the last one in 2013 using some of my savings bonds (thank you Mama for purchasing those when I was little!) to pay off the balance. Many may disagree with that decision but it was one of the best ones that we’ve ever made. I honestly do not know how we would survive as a family of four plus our dog if we still had credit cards to pay for. My hubs and I want to live debt-free so any extra money that we receive or ends up left over from our budget for the month will be added to our debt snowball.
My husband and I communicate regularly on our budget. We also share a debit card – this limits the amount of money available at a given time. These things help us stay accountable and on top of our budget. We are a one income family so budgeting is imperative for us. We have to be on the same page as each other.
How do you budget? Do you and your spouse hold budget meetings? What has or has not worked for you in terms of setting up and sticking to your budget?
Linked Up To: A Bowl Full of Lemons, Thrifty Thursday
JOIN THE CHALLENGE!
Money controlling you? I know the feeling. My family has been living this real life on a budget for a long time and I can tell you that there's never a perfect season, but with a few changes you can start to reign in your money issues.
Join the 5-Day Challenge today and start getting your money life in order this week!
thank YOU! this is truly inspiring as we look out to save for impending retirement that we really only saw as a shadow- “it is so far and we r so young! ” lol!! you are sharing REAL life skills ! again thank you
Thank you Jennifer!!! You are awesome and you are still so young! 😉
I always lay out my budget, every single pay check. But I have the hardest time sticking to it for all the categories. Any tips?
My best budgeting advice is to keep it simple. I keep simple categories and only contribute to certain categories when we can such as clothing, since clothing is not always a necessity every month. I also only carry cash with me when shopping for clothing or other non-grocery items to keep me from going crazy and over budget. I hope this helps! Thank you so much for reading Megan! 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing this!!! My husband and I have been married for one year and a budget has been a stressor in our marriage because I am having to learn this. 🙂 We came up with a budget and it is working. Now that we are thinking of buying a different home and expanding our family, I have been trying to think of how this will work out. Your budget is giving me hope that we can do it! Thanks so much.
I’m a firm believer that if you want it to work out and you’re willing to make it work, it will. I’m so happy that my budget has inspired you and has given you hope! I know that you’ll be able to do and congrats on sticking to your budget! That’s the hardest part!
You go girl! I can completely understand why you would be very nervous to post such private information, but I appreciate your “raw/hold nothing back” style of blogging. It gives people real insight and inspiration. It’s one thing to say “you can do it on one income because my family does and we’re not millionaires” and it’s completely another thing to then show the figures to support that statement. Honestly, I love this post! KUDOS!
Thank you so much Shannon!!! You made my day! 🙂
Getting rid of your credit cards…Priceless! 🙂 Great job!! I wish you continued success ~
Thank you Jan! 🙂
Thank you for sharing! We’re not a one-income family, per se, but I’m looking to work from home to have more flexibility for family following the unexpected loss of my full-time job (it’s something I’ve long wanted to do, and this seemed like a good time to see if it was feasible). My income now is way less than what it was, and I was the bigger earner of my husband and me, so it’s a scary thing. We really need to set up a formal budget. Right now our “budget” consists of me keeping up with expenses and income and letting my husband know whether we have money left for a particular thing. (We also share a debit card, and he’s not inclined to make impulse purchases, so I don’t worry that he’ll blow more money than we have on something ridiculous.) Stopping by from #SITS.
That was the same reason my hubs and I started sharing a debit card, he’s the spender, I’m the saver. I know you’ll get through it! Budgeting has really helped us and without it, we’d probably be broke. Thank you so much for stopping by! Love the SITS Girls! 🙂
How refreshing to read honest $ talk! We have struggled with a budget for many years. Seeing hard numbers is helpful to inspire areas we might improve, thank you !
Thank you so much Christa for your kind words!!! 🙂
Wow, thanks for sharing your post! I am stopping by from the sits link up! I think getting rid of your tahoe is a great idea, we recently got rid of our SUV and saved ourselves $500/mo in car payments and insurance. We got my husband an older truck and paid cash for it. I blogged about it recently if you want to check out the post! http://www.choosing-joy.com/2014/02/how-i-save-vehicle-edition.html
Thank you Jenna! I can’t wait to get rid of my Tahoe even though it’s my dream car. I’m just ready for $0 car payment! 🙂
As a single mom of four, this family of 5 lives on a similar budget. I truly appreciate your openness and agree how hard it is and even moreso on how important it is!
Thank you so much for your kind words! 🙂
As I was reading this, I thought – “hmmm this sounds like Dave Ramsey speaking!” I’m currently doing his Financial Peace class with my fiance and sure enough, I saw that you’d tagged the post dave ramsey! Looks like you are headed in the right direction — congrats on living almost debt free!
Thank you Courtney! I love Dave!! He’s awesome and congrats to you on making the jump as well! Debt-free is the way to be! 🙂
Great blog post! I’m always inspired when I read about the success other people have with their money. You should be very proud of paying off your credit card debt…that’s what I’m working on right now and I can’t wait to get rid of it! The biggest problem I have with budgeting is getting my husband to show an interest. I pretty much just do it on my own!
I used to do the budgeting all on my own for a long time too. My husband used to say to me “you’re the one with the accounting degree so I trust what you say”. It took me forever to get him to jump on board the budgeting train. It wasn’t until I showed him the numbers of how much he was spending and how far in the red we had gone one month that he jumped on board. Thankfully we had our slush fund to cover it but I presented the information as if we didn’t. Thank you so much for your kind words Beth! 🙂
We try to meet at least every few weeks to catch up on where we are and what we need to be working toward. It just doesn’t always happen because of schedules! It’s quite useful, though, when we can make it happen.
We are working with a modest single income for a family as well and I love that you put things the same way I do. Like, it’s not great but it could be SO MUCH WORSE. Keep on keepin’ on and I’m excited to see where you go from here. I found you from the SITS Facebook link and am so glad I did!
Thank you Jenny! It could always be so much worse and thankfully it isn’t! Thank you for your motivation! 🙂
I found your post via the SITS girls. I love your post because my husband and I are struggle to become debt free right now. I found extremely motivational.
Thank You.
Stephanie
Thank you Stephanie! Becoming debt-free is such a challenge but so very worth it!
Love this budget – wondering where you live that you have a rent payment like that. There is nothing in central Maryland for that price…..Maybe I need to move closer to you 🙂 K.
We live in GA and typically you can’t find a mortgage that low here either. We bought a foreclosed house after we had saved the money to renovate it. And Maryland is beautiful, but I’m partial to the south. 🙂
We have a very similar income, for two adults, a baby, a dog, and five cats. But we also own a house in another state that we’re unable to rent out or sell, so we have to foot the bill for that every month too. It’s REALLY hard sometimes. We do try to budget for “fun” things because otherwise it feels like all we’re doing is working to pay bills, but we never do anything fancy or too expensive. I think it’s awesome that you were willing to share your budget. Especially in the blogging world, I think there’s a tendency to look at other people’s lives and think they’ve got it “made”, but really, most of us are just barely making it.
Thank you for sharing this! It is so helpful to see real life numbers and to keep the conversation flowing about budgeting. This is why I love your blog. It took me a long time to create a budget, but I can already see the benefits even in just the 6 months I have been doing it. We have been using cash envelope for a few months now and have learned a lot from it. I create our budget monthly based on income from the previous month, since we have an irregular/non-salary income.
Thank you Jana for your sweet words! Budgeting does make all the difference. I feel like there’s a peace that comes with it, you actually know how much you have and don’t have. Thank you so much! 🙂
Thank you for sharing. It is encouraging to see how others make it work! I pray the Lord will send someone your way to buy the Tahoe. That will fill so good to not have that payment! Stopping by from http://www.singinghoneybee.blogspot.com
Thank you for your prayers Melissa! Yes it will feel so amazing to not have that Tahoe payment anymore! 🙂
Thank you for sharing this! I so admire people who, like you, can be totally honest about their finances. We are struggling as a family to get out of some serious debt – and stay there! – and I am inspired when I read posts like yours. I hope someday I can write just such a post. 🙂
Thank you so much! And one day you will because it is 100% possible to get out of debt and to never have to fall back in! 🙂
Maybe I’m just nosey, but I love seeing other peoples budget. 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
This is a great post !! My husband and I starting to do budget since January so far we enjoy it. My husband is a spender so doing budget really help him to see where the money goes.
This is exactly what I have been looking for! It doesn’t help to see people talk in percentages when you have no idea of the income. This is very helpful.
A few questions… what about gifts? Home maintenance? When you’re on a tight budget, what do you do when the dishwasher breaks or you have to make an unexpected purchase?
Thanks so much!
Hi Emily!
We a couple of different savings accounts (home maintenance, auto, emergency, and medical) to help us keep track of what we have saved for when things break. We decided every month what amounts from our ‘savings’ in our budget to allot to each savings account. For example, when we knew that we would need to be replacing the tires on my husband’s truck we contributed more money to the auto savings account than to the others.
I hope this helps! Thank you so much for your kind words! 🙂
Thank you!
I am a huge Dave fan, too! Just think of how much more money you will have for eliminating other debt by selling your Tahoe. Love the snowball effect!
Do you have a Carmax near you? If so, bring your Tahoe over for a free estimate; you can sell it to them and not buy anything new. It’s all free and they often (depending on the demand they have for the car) will pay more than KBB says you should get. We had some friends who just sold Carmax a Subaru Forrester and they got the amount KBB said they’d get by selling it on their own. I’d imagine a Hybrid Tahoe would get a good amount..
We did go to Carmax and they were the lowest of all the places we’ve been to unfortunately. Hopefully we’ll find somewhere that will be willing to get us closer to our trade amount. The problem with our Tahoe is that here in GA no one wants a hybrid. :-/
Hi Shannon! Terrific post that I’m sure will be helpful for so many… and it appears from your comments that it is already! We are a family of 4 living well on about $10,000 less than you and your husband, so I can tell you that it can be done! We used to bring in more when we lived in another state, but with the recession and job choices short when we made our move back home, our negotiating power (for more pay/ better benefits, etc.) was diminished.
We have been debt-free – other than our mortgage – for about 14 years now and it’s terrific. Our daughters are leery of credit and much better savers than we ever were. And that’s the one thing I wish we had done more of and what we struggle to do now, which is save more. That’s the area that gets sacrificed in our current budget and the part that took the greatest hit during the recession and our move. I would say, plan in any way you can to save for college which is what we are facing with our older daughter who is graduating hs this year. I thought that grants/scholarships and then loans would be able to cover the gap, but that gap is still huge and I find myself wishing we had even more.
Found you through SITS; have a terrific Saturday! 🙂
http://golightlyplace.blogspot.com/2014/03/10-ways-to-plan-your-spring-wardrobe-on.html
Do you have a clothes budget?
We do but it doesn’t get budgeted every month and will come out of the amount that normally gets contributed to savings.
You guys are doing a great job! We’re a one-income family, too, but with no kids, so I’ve been working the budget now to make sure we’re living well under income and setting aside savings for when babies come and money gets tighter!
Thank you for sharing your budget. We’re a family of four, living off of one income and our budget is very similar to yours. It’s fascinating to see how others are balancing their finances.
Found you through the {SITS Sharefest} and I’m so pleased to meet you!
Wishing you a lovely day.
Hi, I just found your site and I wanted to say first thank you for posting your actual budget it is so much more helpful then percentages. Also, you may have posted this somewhere else but I wanted to ask, do you all have to pay for health insurance? Or does it come out of your the check before you bring it home?
It comes out of my husband’s check. We used to have to pay out of pocket for our health insurance and we had to include it in our monthly budget. And thank you so much! I appreciate your kind words. 🙂
Thank you for being vulnerable enough to post this! I can totally understand why you would be nervous about it, but my husband and I are expecting in July and are moving to a single income so I can stay home with our baby. We will be at a very similar income level, and this post has been an answer to prayer. It IS possible!! Thank you for sharing!!
Thank you Rachel! It definitely IS possible! 🙂 And congratulations on the baby!!
It is scary to put all your numbers out there. I have found that people are usually pretty nice though 🙂
You are right Jessi– living on one income is totally do-able. There isn’t a lot of extra, but that’s okay. Good for you for giving up credit cards and best of luck getting rid of the Tahoe. That will free up and nice chunk of the budget!
Do you pay for internet? How do you save for Christmas or gifts? Since we just went down to one income, just looking for more tips 🙂
Christmas gifts are allotted out of our savings. We have several savings accounts set up, each with a different purpose. Our savings amount gets divided up among the accounts by whatever we have agreed upon for that month. And internet is included in our phone bill. We have the slowest and cheapest internet package around!
Thank you so much for sharing. My husband and I are thinking about starting a family in the next couple of years and that means going down to one income.. i have been VERY stressed about the idea and nervous that it might not even be possible….But sharing your real numbers gave me some hope…Thank you so much!
Thank you for sharing. We are expecting our first little one this December. I so desperately want to stay at home (until kiddo is in school full time – at least!). My husband is SO numbers oriented and is very against the idea. Having a stay at home mama growing up, it’s something incredibly important to me. Seeing things like this reassure me that it IS possible and helps me gather more information to bring to him in our discussions about our future. Thanks for being brave and putting it all out there.
You are very welcome Jessi. Congratulations on your soon-to-be bundle of joy! It is possible to stay home, I’m a firm believer in that. It is not always easy and we’ve had to make sacrifices but it is so worth it. My hubs was the same way when I wanted to stay home, showing him proof is what helped convince him. Good luck! 🙂
Thank you for sharing and being so honest. If I am to do the same (and embarrassed to say so), my husband and I don’t know how to budget, and now that we’ve hit on hard times (not because of no budgeting, but I’m sure that would have helped our savings last longer than it did). Do you have a website or software to recommend for non-budget experts? I tried doing a traditional budget on my own, but breaking down all of our expenses proved too overwhelming for me to keep up. I would appreciate any tidbits of advice you could share. Glad I started following you!
Hi Beth! There is are two free online programs that I know about – Mint.com and LearnVest.com (some portions of LearnVest do require payment). I’ve also heard amazing things about YNAB (youneedabudget.com) but you have to pay for that service. My best piece of advice when it comes to setting up a budget is to follow the K.I.S.S. acronym – Keep It Simple Stupid. The more simple you break your budget down (for example instead of having kids clothes, my clothes, hubs clothes, shoes as being categories only have one ‘Clothing’ category) the easier budgeting will be. Good luck Beth! 🙂
i love being “transparent”! i think it’s the best way to teach people, and the best way for people to learn!
also – comparing your numbers to my numbers, this gives me hope that one day we can function as a one income household, as well 🙂
Thank you Amanda for your kind words! 🙂
What do you do for internet service? Big bill in our house.
When I wrote this post it was included in our cell phone bill but now that we’ve changed providers it is currently at $44 a month. We have a super slow speed which can definitely get annoying sometimes.
Thanks for sharing this. It is good to see an example of actual numbers. One thing that I don’t see on this list is health insurance. I want to be a stay at home mom, but health insurance out of pocket is outrageous.
Health insurance comes out of my hubs paycheck so I don’t include it in the budget, but when we were paying for it out of pocket it was ridiculously crazy!
Whoa, you all are doing good on one income. Living up north is what gets us. Our heating bill is almost $200/month! But we don’t have a mortgage (or any other debt), so that helps immensely. It’s possible to live and thrive on one income! Thanks for sharing.
Oh yes heating can be tough, especially after last winter! Y’all rock with having no mortgage!!!! Thank you so much AJ for your kind words! 🙂
I ran across your sight and was curious how you keep your fuel bill so low? thanks!
We live in an area that doesn’t get too horribly cold most winters (North Georgia) and we use our wood burning fire place all the time. 🙂 We also have a fixed rate with our gas company – most companies will do this if you call them.
I was wondering if you guys have cell phones and if so how are you paying only $70/ mo? Also what about internet?
Hi Jessica! I actually updated this post (https://jessifearon.com/2015/02/2015-one-income-family-budget-looks-like.html) which has our current income and expenses. Our cell phone has gone up a little and we use T-Mobile (we only have to pay for me because my hubs’ phone is paid for by his company) and our internet is now $44/month.
Thank you SO much for this post. I understand this was probably hard for you to post but you have defiantly made it real for me that we can afford me to be a stay at home mom. It has been a big worry for us how we would make it work. But with your great ideas and strategies you have made us realized it is possible for us too! Thank you so much for such an amazing post. Much love -Tori!
Thank you so much Toni for your kind words! 🙂 I’m so happy that I can help you!
Amazing! in my country, a $60k annual income is considered quit high! we make it at about $35k and the prices are higher than in the US. we budget on a monthly basis with my wife. Plus we try to make more payments into our savings account. We’re debt free for the past 2 years and do not use our credit cards just like you! Thanks for the great post!
Very inspirational. My wife and I are in our early twenties and make a little over 150k a year, we literally live pay check to pay check, we live in Phoenix, AZ, which is relatively inexpensive to live in. After reading your budget it has inspired us to re-evaluate our monthly budget, clearly we are doing a lot wrong. Thank you!
Thank you Zach! That’s an amazing income level and I know that y’all will figure out what works best for y’all. 🙂
Thank you for your posts. My family actually live on about $2000 a month but soon it will be dropping to $1600. We’re making it through but I was feeling scared about the extra income lost. This posts give me hope that we can keep the car and insurance (with a similar monthly payment due to bad credit). I noticed that internet is not on this monthly budget so I am going online to find out if there are any ways to lower internet/phone costs year in and year out.
Thank you for sharing. You have given me confirmation. May you be filled with content from your family and don’t worry too much about the Tahoe. It will cause you stress. It will all work out alright even if you have to keep the Tahoe. Often we can get so caught up with what we could be doing with that extra money. Just take the time to enjoy it and the memories you’ll have with your family.
Thank you again for sharing. Be blessed with love and contentment.
Sorry, correction, our income will soon be dropping to $1300 a month.
Thank you so much for your kind words Asha! We actually did end up getting rid of the Tahoe and the accompanying payment thankfully. I’ve actually updated this post for 2015: https://jessifearon.com/2015/02/2015-one-income-family-budget-looks-like.html it includes our internet cost (we have the slowest speed/cheapest package available and sometimes it’s frustrating).
Thank you for responding so quickly. I will definitely review the link. Perhaps you went through that experience for me to learn from in case I may have to go through it.
May you and your family feel blessed with love, joy, and peace.
Thank you so much Asha! 🙂
How should a beginner budget?