Bare Bones Budget

Author: Ashley

18 Sep

Tight Fisted Mister lives on $1,000 a month. He recently laid out the budget of Frugal Freedom who lives on $700 a month. That is so little! It makes me wonder what is the minimum we could live on, if we absolutely had to.

It breaks down like this:

Rent: $855

Food: 300

Electricity: 75

Phone: 20

Life Insurance: 100

Misc. : 100

Total: $1450

How I got there:

If we lived close to my husband’s job we could potentially not have cars. I really can’t imagine the four of us living in less than a two bedroom apartment and they go for about $855 a month, according to Rentometer. I think we would need a phone. Not cell phones but a house phone at least. I cut our grocery budget down from $500 to $300. It would be very hard to feed the family on that, but I suppose it’s doable. Other people do it right? This is supposed to be a bare bones budget. The miscellaneous category would cover anything unavoidable the kids need, maybe a cab here and there if we need one, things like that. I don’t know how much we would need in real life to cover those types of expenses. I just guessed.

I’m happy with that number. I’m not happy with the lifestyle that goes along with that low price tag, but I like knowing I could support our family if I had to. When I was working I brought home $1,800 a month. So I don’t see any reason why I couldn’t do that again. And of course that budget is not using any of our current resources. For example, we could use the equity in our home as a down payment on a small condo and have a payment less than $855. So I guess overall I’m pleased.

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Filed under: Budget

8 Responses for "Bare Bones Budget"

Emily September 18th, 2008 at 11:26 am 1
Our living expenses for a family of 4 is $1400/mo. If we went bare bones with no entertainment or extras, it would be closer to $1000 not including what we throw at savings.

This is mostly because we paid cash for our home and don’t have car payments.

Our bills are taxes & ins. on house, electricity, phone & internet, car ins., then throw in food and gas and medical expenses and a little miscellaneous. I’m happy with it mostly because of what it affords us for our future.
Kristy September 18th, 2008 at 2:54 pm 2
Our mortgage is $1,864 per month. I would have to take an in depth look at our budget, but I am guessing that bare bones (but including daycare) we would need at least $3,500 a month. If we took out daycare it would be closer to $3,000 a month. It seems like a lot right now, especially looking at someones budget who lives on $1,000 a month. Wow!
Bruce September 18th, 2008 at 5:29 pm 3
With a little Math I figured a weekly pay check of a tad over $323, 52 weeks a year. To net that a single person would roughly need to gross $415.63 a week or $10.39 an hour for 40 hours a week. Seems low to me to be able to live off that.

I have clients who (although very young) who live off much less. A single mom I help survives on $11,000 a year gross. Two children. Wanna do the math on that?

I think a 1,000 or 1,400 to her would be living it up.
TightFistedMiser September 18th, 2008 at 9:46 pm 4
Hey, Thanks for the mention. If you were really cutting down to the bare minimum you could probably get rid of the life insurance too. That seems like a high monthly payment for life insurance.

I could hypothetically cut my $1000 budget down more if I were to get rid of my car, cut my food budget, and cut my entertainment budget. That would probably lead to a lower comfort level than I’d like. I might get rid of my car before the end of the year though.
Ashley September 19th, 2008 at 12:24 am 5
Kristy: I wasn’t using our mortgage payment in there. I was kind of going with a worst case scenario if we were somehow stripped of everything we have. How ’bout if you rented an apartment that was barely big enough for the fam?

TFM: That is what our life insurance payments really are. It wasn’t a guess, and with having kids I think it’s a necessity. I suppose if we were really living on less than $1,500 a month we could have smaller policies. We would be replacing less income. But we are older now than we were when we got the policy we have. I might be able to cut that down to $75 or maybe even $50.
Kristy September 19th, 2008 at 4:03 am 6
Well, then if I cut out the mortgage payment and I am going to assume daycare as well, we could pobably live on $1,500 a month. That would be pretty tight and we don’t even have a car payment! I am guessing rent would be around $900-$1000 a month.
Amy September 19th, 2008 at 7:52 am 7
@Ashley I’m not sure if you’re insurance is term or whole but you might want to make sure it’s term. I know that my husband and I have term on about $300,000 and we only pay about $20 a month.
Ashley September 19th, 2008 at 9:46 am 8
Amy: Yes it’s term. My premium is $25 a month and my husband’s is $75 a month. Age plays a big part in how much you pay for life insurance and my husband is 13 years older than me. I’m confident we have a good rate. No one needs to worry.