- $500 for rent (with my wife and I paying half) - $100 for insurance (with USAA) - $25 for phone (cricket) - $50 for gas (economy car) - $200 for groceries
That's about $900 in stuff I gotta pay. So I have about $800 to do whatever with. I spend maybe $100-200 a month on entertainment because wife wants to go out sometimes, but I live like a hermit. I'm a gamer, it's what we do. I watch a lot of DVD's (have almost 1000), and have a shit ton of games for NES, Sega, PlayStation, and Super NES. So I make my own entertainment a lot of the time. Also, there's parks. You can find good recipes on the internet too.
What about retirement, general savings, or incidentals? Also, I don't understand how people survive on $200/month for food and don't have the precursors to heart disease.
And I don't feel like we buy a crazy amount of food. It's typically:
- Veggies - Chicken - Fish - Whole grain pasta - Whole grain rice - Water - Nuts + dried fruit - Whole grain bread - Cheese - Milk - Eggs
Then there are one-offs to be refilled like spices, propane, pet food, olive oil, condiments, coffee, etc.
I go to Costco a lot and buy stuff in bulk. 40 bottles of water for like $3. 18 protein shakes for $25. Then they have good deals on eggs and waffles. Also, hot pockets and turkey burgers. You can find pretty good frozen food too, something I learned from working at the commissary. We make a lot of our own stuff too like stuffed peppers, potato salad, fish, fried rice, tuna, French toast, cereal, pop tarts, mac n cheese (home made), greek salad, and just stuff like frozen Chinese food and frozen lasagna.
Also, when I say $200 I mean that that's what I spend. She spends about the same. We alternate every 2 weeks. But if it were just me I could live off of that. ---