GoofyDonut
GoofyDonut

Married folks, what’s your average monthly expenses?

This should include everything from home bills, entertainment, medical expenses, trips etc. When I was single (back in 2016), my expenses were around 20k per month.

Now I easily go above 1L every month (without rent, we live in our own house). My wife also works and she has her expenses too.

Not sure what’s the reason for it though. We live frugally and don’t spend lavishly (atleast I don’t think we do). I barely buy anything for myself (I use 1k earphones and buy clothes from decathalon). My wife is the same.

Is this common when you get married? That your expenses permanently increase? Or is there something I should be worried about? TIA

12mo ago
App Promo
BouncyCupcake
BouncyCupcake

20 K + 20 K in 2016 -> approx 35 K + 35 K = 70 K (assuming 7% inflation over 8 years).

Extra 30 K can be attributed to your lifestyle increase, going out more often , more food ordering , better furniture, gym, medicines, insurance premiums , vehicle purchase, and maintenance if not included etc.

GoofyDonut
GoofyDonut

So I spend 1L per month and my wife spends another 30-50k per month. So it’s around 1.3-1.5 per month for us now. We don’t have any kids.

BouncyCupcake
BouncyCupcake

What has changed from 2016 then ?
Any pets ? Vehicles ? Subscriptions to apps ?
Food ordering to definitely 😂

BubblyCupcake
BubblyCupcake

I found myself in a similar situation. I was hardly able to figure out whats going on. So this is what I did.

  1. Track all our expenses across three months. And differentiate into categories. I have like 12 categories I think.

  2. Then I revisited these categories into essentials and unnecessary/wants.

  3. Revisited the numbers I can spare and have to spare for each category.

  4. Created a joint Account for me and my wife. Setup SI to transfer our monthly budget calculated from above.

  5. All expenses will come from that.

After following this it has hardly crossed the limit and then if for some reason it crosses we are clearly aware what might have caused it. Like one time purchases like phone or some vacation. We have separate funds for these so we know that we are not crossing our budgets.

BubblyCupcake
BubblyCupcake

Only thing that we need to be aware of is what are wants and what are needs. how much I am willing to spend on my wants and am I spending too much in the name of needs.

GoofyDonut
GoofyDonut

Oh wow, this is fantastic! Curious to know your 12 categories and rough budgets for it. If you can, pls share. I’ll create my spreadsheet too then

MagicalPancake
MagicalPancake
Swiggy12mo

Create an excel and make a habit of entering pareto expenses every month (The count would be at best 20 items).
For us Rent- 60k Travel- 30k (Due to a lot of weddings or travel to meet parents) Grocery - 10k Househelps- 10k Weekend outings- 10k
Misc- 30k
We too barely spend on shopping but when you live in a tier 1 city 1L per month would be minimum expense per month. However your expense seems to be on the higher end given you don't pay rent.

GoofyDonut
GoofyDonut

Thanks, this is a good benchmark. I appreciate it!

WobblyBurrito
WobblyBurrito

Damn bro. Pareto in expenses. This is some wonderful perspective. 👏

PrancingPotato
PrancingPotato

Rent - 50 Utilities - 2.5 Maid - 7 Petrol - 15 Subscriptions - 4 Petcare - 3 Grocery, food, hangout - 54 Parents - 80 Annual - 15


Total - 230 Earnings - 345

Savings - 115

GoofyDonut
GoofyDonut

Very helpful! Thank you for sharing.

JazzyBoba
JazzyBoba
Zomato12mo

How much experience? And company?

JumpyRaccoon
JumpyRaccoon

How closely do you keep track of your spends? Do you budget at the start of every month?

If you alone are spending about 1L and your wife has her expenses over an above that then I feel something's amiss. Do you spend more on experiences instead? The number looks fine if you are having kids though, or even a home loan EMI. Else this doesn't look frugal IMO.

GoofyDonut
GoofyDonut

It’s hard to track it month over month. I mean I just see spends summary on cred and it’s mainly travel, Amazon home shopping or medical expenses. How do you track your spends month over month with your wife? (across CC, UPI etc)

BubblyCupcake
BubblyCupcake

If it’s am android phone, there are bunch of apps. If it’s ios then it’s tough.

I ended up creating a shortcut for it which basically breaks it down and updates an excel.

FluffyPotato
FluffyPotato

I use axio to track my expenses. It doesn't require any crazy permissions like reading bank account statement etc. It maintains records based on the messages. Twice every week I just make sure to remove any duplicate expense, add expense maid without my phone and properly categorise them. It's great and it's free.

FluffyPotato
FluffyPotato

To me the "inconvenience" of skipping ads and avoiding spam calls is far less troublesome than the inconvenience of having to manage my expense on Excel.
In age of UPI, Adding records manually always takes more efforts and is error prone compared to consolidating auto tracked records against bank statements weekly.

PerkyDumpling
PerkyDumpling

Rent - 25k includes electricity also Groceries - 7k Eating out - 5k Travel going home - 10k per month
We make - 5 lac per month

Invest - 3 lac per month

GroovyPickle
GroovyPickle

5L through job? Or business?

PerkyDumpling
PerkyDumpling

I freelance in tech, husband works in mechanical industry

JazzyDonut
JazzyDonut

We use splitwise to track and share expenses. Average spend ~ 2L/m Rent:80k Kid school:40k Help: 25k Grocery:10k Electricity:10k Others:10-15k Plus 2 travels per year at 2-4L per travel

PeppyBanana
PeppyBanana

25k for help? Is she/he like available all time?

JazzyDonut
JazzyDonut

Yes, 24 hr help and a cook

JumpyDonut
JumpyDonut
Optum12mo

DISK . we do live frugally , dont go much out or to movies . Overall spent is around 80k per month including kid’s school fees , insurance payments, home loan emi etc.

SquishyCoconut
SquishyCoconut
Slice12mo

How about travel and hotel cost. For me if I plan any travel it impacts that month and next while paying cc bill.

GoofyDonut
GoofyDonut

Yes, but I’m talking about the monthly average over the last 3 couple of years. Travel and hotel are all included in this. We spend 3-4L on our travels every year which is split between my wife and I.

SquishyCoconut
SquishyCoconut
Slice12mo

Then if I divide 4 lakh in both you and your wife and given how you guys spend your bucket will be 3L which leaves you with 9L per year. I believe this is quite common. If you see on high level maid, cook, maintenance, electricity and water bills alone can range around 3L and then grocery, food outside, shopping, vehicle, any other hobby it's around 50K that you are spending which imo is normal in cities like Bangalore, Mumbai etc.

Discover more
Curated from across
Personal Finance
by BouncyJellybeanZepto

Folks making >5Lpm, how to live?

Basically want to know how you guys strategise and manage spending. Few questions to make this easier

  1. Are you single/married? 1.5 Do you have impulsive spending issues?
  2. What’s the spending + investment + necessities + savings spli...
Software Engineers
by BubblyPotatoSoftware Engineer

Done with Tier1 cities, moving to tier 2 town with family - A rant

Been in Bangalore for 6+ years and love everything the city has given me. This city ( more like people here) taught me what software engineering and product sense is, how to entrepreneurs function, whats a 100X coder like. Made many ...

Top comments
user

So are you fed up with Bangalore or just the career rat race? Both are different. Also, costs can be low in...

user

Lucky you.

user

Bold move, let more and more of us be empowered to make this rad steps in life. As people like us empty out and...

Misc
Misc19mo
by SillyPotatoTCS

CTC

How much CTC is said to be good for a person to be going to do a job in Bengaluru or other city?

Top comment
user

Nothing is good enuf for a shithole like blr

Bangalore
by SnoozyCupcakeSwiggy

How much do you save per month?

What is the biggest expense, how much do you save and how much do you invest

Top comments
user

Wtf everyone here 2l+ pm 🥵🔥

user

Save around 90% of my salary. Biggest expense is rent (25k).

user

Income - 50k expenses - 15-20k saving - 30-35k