The Budget Breakdown aims to broaden the conversation on money and offer insights into various approaches to spending, saving, and investing.

✨ Want to share your monthly budget breakdown with us? Please fill out this form here and we will get back to you (can be posted anonymously like this one 😉).

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💰 Income

Personal Monthly Gross Income: $0.00

Personal Monthly Net Income: $0.00

Monthly Household Gross Income: $12,000

Monthly Net Income: $7,500

Other Income Sources: $1,000 (freelance writing, Upwork, grant reviews, random side hustles)

Dependants: 2 children, 1 spouse (although he is currently the breadwinner)

🏡 Monthly Fixed Expenses

Rent: $3,050

Utilities (Electricity, Water, Gas): $300

Internet: $82

Car Payments & Fuel: $580

Life and Car Insurance: $125

Credit Card Debt Payments: $1,200

Personal Loan Payments: $610

Student Loan Payments: $120

Subscriptions: $30 (Disney and Netflix)

Cell phone: $40

🛒 Monthly Variable Expenses

Groceries: $1,000

Eating Out (Restaurants, Bars): $40

Entertainment (Movies, Events, Hobbies): $40

Personal Care: $10

Travel: $200 for the occasional weekend trip

💸 Monthly Savings and Investments

$0 (though my husband does allocate portions of his salary to retirement and investment funds)

🎁 Monthly Miscellaneous

Gifts and Donations: $200

Childcare/Education: $2,980

Health and Wellness: $17 (allergy injection co-pay), $15 (occasional co-pay for medical visits for myself, my husband, or the kids)

⚖️ Final Balance

Total income: $8,500 in net income per month

Total expenses: $10,639

Final balance: -$2,139

💭 Money Reflections

1. How much does tracking your personal finances influence your spending, saving, and investing habits?

Considerably. I track our family’s expenses every Monday so I’m always operating with current knowledge, and we have negative wiggle room.

2. Is there anything you wish you would spend less money on?

Since we are operating at a deficit, I’m spending the minimum amount of money possible in every category.

3. What do you consider important to spend money on?

Children’s education and, when we can afford it, quality food ingredients.

Private education is something we have no room in the budget for right now, but I do not want to take my kids out of an environment they are both absolutely thriving in. If I had a traditional job with a fixed income, rather than a startup that requires much belt-tightening in the immediate future, I don’t know that I would invest in private school for them. Or maybe I would, and get another side hustle to support it.

Because we operate on such a tight budget, we can’t really go out to eat often, even for fast food. So the vast majority of our meals come from home. To this end, I’ve learned to shop very economically.

4. Do you have any short-term or long-term financial goals?

Yes. The first is to stabilize our budget by any means possible, meaning giving more priority to freelance work while continuing to build out the startup. The short-term goal is $2,000/month in additional income from consulting work, and $5,000/month in income from the startup. Our medium-term goal is to obtain a combined income of $400,000 from salaries and freelance engagements by Q4 of 2026.

5. Are there any specific saving or investment strategies you follow?

We aspire to follow the 50/30/20 rule, where 50% of your income goes to set expenses, 30% is discretionary and can be used on vacations, going out to eat, etc., and 20% is saved. But we are not there. We are not aggressive or risk-takers with investments, but are invested in mutual funds.

6. What was your relationship with money like growing up? Did you talk about it with your parents/caregivers?

Even though I grew up in a stable, middle-class home and never experienced poverty, I had constant financial anxiety and operated with a scarcity mindset. I think that my mother, as warm and compassionate and intelligent as she was, overshared financial concerns with me and instilled a fear of “expensiveness” that I still have a hard time with financial anxiety and spending money. It’s still very hard for me to spend money on myself. Not that I can right now, anyway.

7. Did you receive any formal or informal financial education growing up? If yes, where did you learn to manage your personal finances?

No formal education. I had an allowance, and always had jobs, but could have benefited from help.

8. Do you feel well-versed in personal finance? What resources have you used to educate yourself?

I do not feel well-versed in personal finances. I’ve tried reading books in the personal finance canon, but find a lack of relevance because of my current experience with founding a startup.

9. What advice about money would you give to your younger self?

Hire a financial advisor early.

💡 Ask the community

Can you succeed despite having made so many mistakes? How do you dig yourself out of a hole?