It’s a question that has been discussed recently in the personal finance blogosphere: could you live on $1,000 a month? (Or, for two people, $2,000 a month?) A couple bloggers (I Pick Up Pennies and Fabulously Broke in the City) answered YES. For me, the short answer, for which I barely even have to do any math, is no. I couldn’t even pay my rent and my student loan bill with $1,000 a month. But it raised the question: How little could I live on? Could we, between the two of us, live on $3,000 per month? Here’s what it would look like:
Rent: $1690
Student loan: $400
Cell phones: $130 (assuming we couldn’t break our contracts)
Electricity: $75 (higher in summer)
Internet: $50
Groceries: $500
Laundry: $60
Transportation: $120 (subway fare)
TOTAL: $3065
Here’s are some things I wouldn’t be able to buy:
Dry cleaning
Hair cuts
Medical/dental
Any meals out
Home goods
Clothing
Netflix
Newspaper subscriptions
Charitable donations
Gym/exercise
Wedding gifts
Am I leaving anything out? Are there any necessary expenses I’m forgetting, which should be included in our $3,000 budget? Are there any other things I’d have to give up?
5 Comments
June 23, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Insurance for an apartment, what would you do if you lived in a large city that lacked good public transportation and you had a car, what about dependents?
June 23, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Good point — we do have renter’s insurance which costs about $12 a month. If we lived somewhere that lacked public transportation, well, we’d be out of luck. However, I assume we’d have lower rent. And if we had dependents, that would bust our budget as well.
June 23, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Oh, I also forgot travel! We wouldn’t be able to travel at all.
June 24, 2009 at 8:13 pm
I actually live on $1,100 a month as a full-time student living on my own. I am not going into debt for nor do I have financial aid, so that $1,100 includes an amount for tuition every month. If I broke it down, it would be
Rent-$450
Tuition-$400
Insurance-$50 (renter’s and car)
Internet-$50
Grocery and misc-$150
Gas is not a category since my employer pays it. If I had to, I could probably cut $100 out a month by getting less coverage on insurance, getting worse internet and by cutting misc expenses.
Thanks,
Hannah
June 30, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Spontaneous summer ice cream cones, movies, shows, tipping, parking meters, car repair, AAA, (I realize this part only applies to us gas guzzlers), pet care (for anyone with a pet), birthday gifts, books and magazines, music purchases, medicine.