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
Borosil_Carrier
Stealth
8 months ago
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.
OddWarlock
Stealth
8 months ago
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.
Borosil_Carrier
Stealth
8 months ago
What has changed from 2016 then ?
Any pets ? Vehicles ? Subscriptions to apps ?
Food ordering to definitely 😂
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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.
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.
OddWarlock
Stealth
8 months ago
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
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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.
OddWarlock
Stealth
8 months ago
Thanks, this is a good benchmark. I appreciate it!
Damn bro. Pareto in expenses. This is some wonderful perspective. 👏
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
OddWarlock
Stealth
8 months ago
Very helpful! Thank you for sharing.
PolarBear
Stealth
7 months ago
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.
PolarBear
Stealth
7 months ago
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.
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.
OddWarlock
Stealth
8 months ago
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)
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.
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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.
Rent - 40k
Utilities - 3k
Maid - 7k
Ration - 5k
Veggies - 4k
Milk, Bread, Eggs - 6k
Auto & cabs - 7k
Medical - 8k (set for recurring appointments)
Total spend - 80k (collective spend with no kids)
This amount is mostly set ^ besides this, occasional ice cream orders and travel tickets make up our miscellaneous (we order or eat out only once/twice a month owing to health issues). Biggest difference is you should stop Zepto/Blinkit/Instamart and be intentional about your rationing. Buy all ration at start of month only (like our parents used to) and go out to choose fresh veggies near your place (if you have the option, on alternate days). Put money in bb wallet to order from (if you don’t have decent shops around) and track how fast are you draining that wallet.
Also, money should flow through one person to centralise (mostly, it can’t be perfect). Earlier my wife saved all her salary and I controlled expenses. Recently lost my job so now my wife handles expenses. She only cut on her Myntra orders (~10k).
What gets measured, gets managed.
Elix
Stealth
7 months ago
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
Elix
Stealth
7 months ago
Yes, 24 hr help and a cook
SabChangaSi
Stealth
7 months ago
I know where your problem is. Your gifts to couple friends are probably a little overpriced. I'm assuming they're in the 5k range.
FindingHorses
Stealth
7 months ago
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
FindingHorses
Stealth
7 months ago
I freelance in tech, husband works in mechanical industry
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How about travel and hotel cost. For me if I plan any travel it impacts that month and next while paying cc bill.
OddWarlock
Stealth
8 months ago
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.
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.
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For us, the combined expense is around 1.5-1.6 lakhs with Rent and EMI included. This should come down to 1.4 once we move to our own home (because EMI will increase and rent will go away).
Keeping it simple
Monthly rent - 25K
Monthly expenses (groceries, maintenance, gas, petrol etc) - 30K
Miscellaneous (wont be the same in all months) - 10K (it covers unexpected expenses like hospital, hometown, festival, movies, etc)
Yearly expenses which comes anually -
Car and bike insurances - 20K
Car and bike services - 20K
Yearly trip within india - 50-60K
kids school fee - 150K
Bdays, marriage day, gifts to kids, clothing(same as you dont go for too much shopping) - 20K
I use credit card for all expenses, on app it shows total, it keeps me on check.
Also use two different back accounts, one for investment and one for expenses (UPI, atm withdrawl) and once salary is received (salary account is different)money is transferred to these two accounts.
Every quarter end keep check on where expenses are made and try to control it next months
OddWarlock
Stealth
8 months ago
That is great advice, thank you
easily 1L per month combined if we don’t have any major travel plans or one time purchases. 40k rent (blore) + 10k eating out + 10k groceries + 6k (cook + domestic help) + miscellaneous.
You have answered yourself.... entertainment and trips those should not be frequent but planned.
Didn't go through the whole thread though hence asking if your EMI is also included in this 1 L ?
OddWarlock
Stealth
8 months ago
I don’t have any EMIs.
Whatsinthename
Stealth
a month ago
1.4 L staying with parents, rented house. Family of 5.
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