budgets budgets budgets!

[baritone108]

Judah,

It's part of Obamacare, your children can remain on your health insurance until they are 26.  If they are married or have children of their own only your child can be on your insurance.  My daughter is on mine and her husband is on his mother's.  they're insurance shopping now because a baby is on the way and will not be covered under either plan.  Also, if there is supplemental dental or vision insurance your company does not have to allow you to carry your adult child on that, just on the basic health insurance.

[Lady Snowdon]

I live in the Upper Midwest, in the metro area of Minneapolis/St. Paul.  Prices can vary quite a bit even between different cities in our metro area!

I paid $3.29 for gas this morning.  My car is actually a small SUV (Hyundai Tucson), is a 2006 model, bought 2 years ago and cost about $12,000.   I think my interest rate is about 7% for that.

DH and I have a 3 bedroom/3 bath/2 car attached garage house, 1500 sq ft, built in 1981.  We bought it for $200,000 about 4 years ago.  It's now worth about $170,000 due to dropping real estate!  We just refinanced, and our payment will be going down to about $1200, including property taxes and homeowner's insurance.  We have forced air central heating and air-conditioning.  In the summer our electrical bill is about $70 and our gas bill is about $30.  It's reversed in the winter, as our furnace is gas. 

DH and I both attended a private college.  When we attended, tuition was $25,000 per year our freshman year.  I think room and board tacked on another $5,000 or so to that price.  That was 1999.  This year, tuition at the same college for a freshman is $37,000, plus room and board.  I just graduated from my master's program at a private university, and paid about $35,000 over the course of 5.5 years for that.  My first set of student loans came due just now, and I'll be paying about $400 a month for the next ten years on that money.  My company picked up the other $16,000 of the tuition.  Sadly, it would have been even more expensive had I gone to the program offered by our state university.

I pay about $180 per month for my health insurance, which is through my employer. 

I'd say I spend about $300 a month on groceries, but that's unusual.  DH works for a chain of upscale grocery stores, and so we shop there.  We could probably cut our grocery bill by a 1/3 if I shopped elsewhere. 

We paid $8 per person for matinee tickets to the movies last time we went. 

A paperback book costs about $8, a hardback costs about $25 - $30. 

[CakeEater]

I'd say I spend about $300 a month on groceries, but that's unusual.  DH works for a chain of upscale grocery stores, and so we shop there.  We could probably cut our grocery bill by a 1/3 if I shopped elsewhere. 

Wow! If I come home with less than $300 worth of groceries a week, I'm pretty happy. Baby, toddler, DH and me. Formula, 2 lots of nappies, all meat, fruit and veges as well as groceries. In rural Australia, but shopping at either of the two big grocery chains.

[Redsoil]

CakeEater - I'm with you being a bit boggled on others with relatively low grocery bills.  We're on a farm in rural Australia and an average grocery bill would be $250 or so for just two of us (including cleaning stuff and other products apart from food).

Fuel is around 148 cents a litre.  Diesel runs a bit cheaper for us after we get a rebate (vehicles which are not used "on road" are exempt from road tax, which is rebated to us after paying.  We buy diesel several thousand litres at a time.)

My new ute was 36,000 in 2010.  DH's ute (second-hand) was 14,000 (2002 model 1 tonner)  Insurance for mine is $850 per annum (includes 60% no claim bonus). 

We rent a house to tenants in town for $220 per week.  I work part-time as a specialist medical receptionist - $25 per hour plus superannuation on top of that.

I went to uni in the dim dark ages where there were no fees (early-mid 80s). Yes, to all the US Hellions - free education, no catches! Just paid for textbooks and extras. That ended a long time ago, though.  I'm looking at possibly going back to study (distance education) and the units I'm looking at will cost round $15,000 all up.

General shoes for work are about $80, riding boots for farm work are about $90.  My "flash" ones for going out are about $350, but they'll last forever.  Jeans are around $60, polo shirts about the same.

Insurance is a lot - farms tend to need quite a bit and it's not cheap!  Health insurance for the two of us is about $2400, plus there are various other insurances for disability/death etc.  Insurance and accounting fees tend to take up quite a bit of budget.

What about computers in other parts of the world?  Broadband wireless internet here is $59 per month, and a Toshiba laptop was $999 on special.  Obviously, computers would vary wildly depending on what one has, but I thought it would be interesting to see the different options and price ranges. 

Posting stuff in Australia seems quite dear compared to other places.  I've had parcels from the US sent to me for around $6 to $13.  Domestic parcels here for similar sizes and weights were double that!  Also, domestic airfares from rural areas are expensive.  Regional centre to Sydney return was around $340 last time I checked.

Interesting to see the differences in various bits and pieces!

[jaxsue]

I live in near NYC. Need I say more?