whats your biggest expense?

[Baby_nurse]

In another thread shaggy refers to a husband.

I saw that after I posted this. D'oh!

[grumpter]

Depends on how one looks at it. Many might say my housing expenses. I would say my wants. Instead of paying full cash for my home I took out a mortgage and invested the remaining balance which now pays for my mortgage, taxes, insurance, fee's etc. with a little left over. That to me is a wash, my home expenses are being paid by other people (tenants). With my 'wants' paid for I still manage to save 20%+ of my before tax income.

[sandrark]

is it housing or food?

i am curious if any of you have seen your food bills go up, how much in what period of time?

Neither. It's taxes. Then housing, then retirement savings. We're gonna be RICH when we do retire -- the house will be paid off, and we won't be saving for retirement any longer.

[rinamontella]

Its absolutely hose for me!

[JoeP]

Housing (mortgage), followed by food, then property/school taxes, and then gas/electric. Our goal is to eliminate the first, and then minimize most of the rest by moving into a smaller house. This will free up money to help give us a comfortable retirement and most likely leave some property and money for the kids.

[Blessed]

We don't have a mortgage but we do have high property taxes. Our food cost are $100 a month over what our yearly property tax bill would be if you broke it down monthly. Next highest cost is auto insurance since I have all teen boys.

[PSF]

Definitely housing. I'd say the cost is about 3x higher then groceries. We are only a small family though. But the cost of groceries has definitely been getting higher and I think this is something that most of the world is experiencing at the moment.

Lax monetary policy from the world's central banks will do that sort of thing though.

[Shzasaver2]

College - Two attending this year - $40K total for both....Ouch!
Thank goodness it will be two years at this price then down to 20K.

[disneysteve]

College - Two attending this year - $40K total for both....Ouch!

That's pretty reasonable. I would be thrilled if college only cost 20K/year when our daughter starts next year.

[Baby_nurse]

College - Two attending this year - $40K total for both....Ouch!
Thank goodness it will be two years at this price then down to 20K.

LOL. Somedays I'm glad my kids are spaced 6 and 5 years apart. I get a teeny break in checks I'm sending off to college.

[dawnwes]

No one should be spending that much on hose, doesn't matter if it is panty hose or a water hose......

Its absolutely hose for me!

[DorindaD]

Mortgage is biggest expense.. with food bill being next. ( my daughter is pregnant )..lol

[shaggy]

Ouch. I guess it would have been cheaper to keep her.

Like you caught later, it's a him.

I don't think it would have been cheaper to keep him. He has unresolved mental health and addiction issues, and I needed to make a clean financial break to stop the increasing costs. As my current man says, "At least you capped what you're spending on him."

[natewebco]

Housing by far. About $2000/month on the mortgage, plus any upkeep or repairs or improvements. Food is only about $700/month. This is for a family of 5.