Unveiling Our New Monthly Budget After Marriage

Many months ago, I wrote a post about my perspective on cohabitation and it referenced how it cost Camilla and I about $9,000 to live apart throughout our engagement. That is no small sum, but we didn't really consider it "lost" money because it fell in line with our beliefs. We try to be intentional with our money and we want to help you set a framework around your life so you can have a healthy budget. We'd like to share our numbers with you to see if they resonate with you in any way!

Housing

Mortgage/Rent: $1800 (includes escrow for taxes and insurance)

Water bill: $50 ($600/year)

Natural gas bill: $40 ($480/year)

Internet bill: $50 ($600/year)

Trash Fund: $25 ($75 every 3 months)

Food

Groceries: $400 ($4,800 a year)

Restaurants & Other: $300 ($3,600/year)

Giving

Donations: $850 ($10,200/year)

Transportation

Gasoline: $240 ($2,880/year)

Maintenance Fund: $20 ($240/year)

Other

Clothing Fund: $20 ($240/year)

Phone: $100 ($1,200/year)

Fun Money: $20

All in all, those expenses total up to $3,915. Rounding that up to $4,000 per month ($48,000 per year), we find that our FI number is about $1,200,000. I spoke previously about how I figured that we'd be comfortable retiring when we had between $1.25 million and $1.5 million. Based on current expenses, we really need to buckle up and try to spend less or make more money! We wanted to try to live within a $40,000/year budget but it looks like we're $8,000 over.

We set aside some pre-tax monies for our employer-funded retirement accounts as well as a Health Savings Account (HSA). In fact, we are on track to max those yearly retirement accounts out this year (between the two of us, that's $39,000). I wasn't ever sure we'd max out those accounts, but here we are, well on our way. It's pretty surreal, but it's only possible because we have our reselling side hustle. We have built up the hustle to the point where we have that extra money to invest.

There are some expenses we think we can cut - some food (especially eating out), our phone bill, maybe re-amortize our mortgage to pay less per month to simply pay our taxes at the end of the year. We don't feel pressed to make big sweeping changes right now since we've got a very healthy emergency fund. Also worth noting is that we're somewhat still in the honeymoon phase so we've been enjoying life together without worrying too much about our expenses.

The other thing we've had to think about is how this is all going to change once we start a family! We have been praying about this even before our marriage, so we are ready to welcome a child when God is ready to bless us with one.

Lastly, our extra money from our side hustle is being reinvested, but we're also considering buying another home to rent out to start another stream of income! We are now saving for that future. So we're busy busy busy with lots of plans, but we're taking small steps toward our future of Financial Independence and we hope you are too!

We're rooting for you!

Khang and Camilla