$700 bucks a month on food? What do you eat? And if you both have brand new cars, what maintenance expense do you have?

$700 is all in, with a few trips to restaurants, all alcohol, etc. That's 100% of our consumption per month but could be cut more as we shop at Aldi and Costco exclusively, and buy 1/4 cows for freezer beef that last us about 18 months. Does that seem high?

Maintenance on cars, no kidding, should be about $200 a year. We drive about 6k miles a year per vehicle so we are looking at 2 oil changes per year per vehicle. Won't have to even think about other maintenance or tires for a few years.

I guess I'll buy the car maintenance, but man, that food bill is way too high. I spend MAYBE $300 a month on a bad month for 2.

We do have 1 baby! Lol but yes we need to start looking at all the "extras" we get and go out to dinner only once a month maybe

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How old is kid? What is wife’s income? And when kid is school age what is the plan? Also childcare costs if she doesn’t stop working?

$700/mo on food for 3 people is a $175 shopping trip weekly. That's not unreasonable for three people who don't want to be eating like rats, especially with grocery prices the way they are.

My wife and I spend about $150/week on groceries. We buy a lot of fresh, organic foods and meats, but nothing exactly "over the top".

This is a weird number to cling to in this post.

$5 per day per person is your bad month? Come on now.

I suppose I could do that if it was absolutely necessary. That's maybe $1 for breakfast, $1.50 for lunch and $2.50 for dinner. No snacking, definitely no drinks except water, certainly no alcohol. That's extremely tight. Especially in 2023 and if you don't live somewhere extremely cheap.

They have a 'baby' so I'm thinking under 2, and wife is pregnant. They're looking at at least 6 years of childcare, 3 with 2 kids. Childcare will be hefty.

That is too close for comfort in my opinion to live on one income. Future expenses to consider: large unexpected medical bill, therapy expenses, child extracurricular or field trip, savings for kids college and braces, new vehicle expenses when current cars get old, major home repair or renovation. You would be in a better situation to maintain 2 incomes while hiring a housekeeper or part time nanny to help with the kids.

I agree. I think that if we had an additional $1000-1500/month it would be perfect, however that could happen

When I take the numbers you've listed above, and add in your annual expenses (spread out over 12 months), I'm getting a total monthly expense of $4696. So most months, it's going to be close. I realize that in your budget, you're considering checks 25 & 26 as extra paychecks in 2 of the months. And you also have your annual bonus that's not in here. But I'm also not sure that you've included all expenses. Cell phone? No number for home maintenance/repair? Clothes? Your budget also doesn't have any line item for savings/vacations/etc. So if we're working off of a regular net income of $5k, you'll probably be right up to the edge of it most months.

It feels like it's going to be really tight most every month, and you'll be reliant on those 2 checks and the bonus to buy back breathing room. So you'll likely run at a slight loss many months, and you'll need those checks to balance it all back out. And what happens when you need to replace a car?

Yes. And this is the stuff that I need to kind of "prove out" to my wife that if everything is absolutely perfect, we can afford it. Literally any hiccup means digging into savings or emergency fund. It's no way to live in my opinion...