In last weeks post, I laid out an easy budget spreadsheet that anybody can use in order to get a hold of one’s bills and routine expenses. I only think it’s fair to show my current budget to you and explain what my line items are used for. I’m hoping this will explain any issues one might have while filling it out as well as show everyone what I have to work with.
Income – My income is the sum of my two bi-monthly paychecks. Currently, Mrs. Noob doesn’t work so we only have one income.
Bills – Here’s a list of our current monthly bills
- Rent – We stay in a house that’s currently owned by my parents. We pay the mortgage and utilities that are bundled together.
- Suddenlink – Our internet service provider. We currently pay for 200 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up. We also pay an extra $5 bucks a month for no data cap. We do a lot of internet in this house currently and this is a required expense.
- Noob Car – I currently pay extra per month on my car loan. It’s normally around $400 a month but I allocated $600 a month to pay it off faster. This will let me save money on interest over the course of the loan.
- Car Insurance – Both Lady Noob and I both have our car insurance through Geico.
- Two phones – We currently both have plans at Virgin Mobile. It’s been the cheapest I could find for 5gb LTE and unlimited data, voice and text.
- Roth – I take full advantage of maximizing my Roth contribution every year. When you calculate it, it’s around $458 bucks a month. Vanguard takes the payment out of my account automatically every month so I don’t have to worry about it.
- Netflix/Hulu/Amazon/UFC – We don’t have regular cable tv so a lot of our entertainment is consumed by various streaming sites. I’ve been a fan of Netflix since they launched. We subscribe to Hulu whenever there is something we’d like to watch. I’ve been an Amazon Prime member for awhile now since we do a lot of shopping online and considering they give free movies and books, it’s actually been quite a deal. UFC is a sport that I love to watch and their Fightpass has proved to be a good value so far.
- Preschool – This is preschool for Noob Junior. It lets him interact with kids his own age twice a week and as a bonus, gives us 3 hours off for days he’s at preschool. Win, Win in our book.
Estimates for our Food, Gas as well as entertainment. We try to budget a little bit of play money every month for everyone. Happiness is worth it.
The only debt I carry is what’s left of my Jeep payment. When Noob Jr. was born, we needed a bigger vehicle and I went ahead and traded in my small car for a 4 door Jeep Wrangler. As noted above in the bills section, I pay an extra $200 a month to pay it off faster. It should only take fifteen more months to pay off now. Credit card balances are paid off every month. I suggest everybody does the same!
The retirement section includes my current balance in my work 401k. The company i work for currently matches up to 6% so that’s great. Also mentioned above is my current balance for my Roth account. As of right now, the federal government allows me to contribute $5,500 a year. The traditional IRA is a 401k that was rolled over from a previous employer.
But overall, I have a positive net worth which is an amazing feeling. It’s nice to see it down on paper (err..computer monitor?) and that’s all because of the budget.
I hope my budget shows people how easy it is to do!