Courtesy of Angela Rozmyn
- Angela Rozmyn lives in Seattle with her husband and son. They both work in construction and earn a combined income in the low six figures.
- They save 40% to 50% of their income and plan to become financially independent in their early 40s.
- For Business Insider’s "Real Money" series, Angela tracked their spending during a typical week.
- During the week, they spent a total of $810 on upcoming flights to Iceland, family dinners, and a fishing trip.
- Want to share a week of your spending? Email yourmoney@businessinsider.com.
My husband of 10 years and I live in the Seattle area with our four-year-old son, two dogs, a cat, a corn snake, and the same roommate we’ve had for the past seven years.
Our ultimate goal is to reach financial independence in our early 40s, which is about 10 years from now. We have no plans on necessarily leaving our jobs at that time, but we want the flexibility and freedom to make choices about our lives (including our employment) outside of the dollars we get from a paycheck. There is no guarantee that we will be able — or will want — to work in another 10 or 15 years, or even later, and financial independence gives us that security regardless of what life throws at us.
My husband and I both work in the construction field, building affordable, sustainable communities in our very high cost of living area. We’ve always been fairly frugal — we got married for $3,500, managed to buy a home at 23, and I paid off my student loans at 25 (my husband never had any thanks to his time in the Marine Corps).
I went back to work full time when my son was five months old. With two full-time working parents (and my husband was working 50 to 60-hour weeks), life during the week was hectic and a complete blur. We spent money to make life a bit easier, but it didn’t really help. We were just busy and overwhelmed.
Things needed to change, so when my son turned a year old, we put him into part time daycare and I cut my hours to 80% time. Our families help out the rest of the week, so I work five days a week, just shorter days. Having my afternoons free of work meant I then had more headspace to tackle our spending habits and create more intentionality in our lives.
Three and a half years later, our spending for a typical week looks like this:
Our biggest discretionary spending is always our food budget.
Shayanne Gal/Business Insider
Last year, our family of three spent $36,667.10, plus our mortgage, daycare, and insurance costs. While this averages out to just over $3,000 a month, this number fluctuates quite a bit depending on what expenses crop up. Namely, home maintenance and vet bills, and our older dog has had some serious health issues over the last two years.
Our biggest discretionary spending is always our food budget, and while it is two-thirds less than it used to be, we still spend a healthy amount on groceries and eating out (usually while on vacation). Second and third are pet expenses and vacations. We go out of town on weekend adventures often, usually camping or staying in Airbnbs, and then use travel rewards to reduce the cost when we do bigger trips like Hawaii and a road trip up the East Coast.
We have a roommate and bought our home in the bottom of the real-estate market, so our housing costs are quite low for a very expensive area. We charge him well under the going rate for rent, but he watches our animals when we go out of town, so it works out well for all of us. Our families watch our son three days a week, so our childcare costs are quite reasonable for our area, but again, still really expensive compared to most parts of the county.
We don’t have car payments or any debts other than our mortgage, so our fixed costs are quite low for the Seattle area. This gives us more flexibility to spend on the discretionary items that are important to us while still maintaining a high (40-50%) savings rate.
My husband and I make median incomes for our area, which equates to the low six figures. Salaries are higher here, but so are the rest of our expenses, from childcare to housing to groceries. Otherwise, we make a very small amount of passive income from investments.
We spent $810 this week, plus just over $100 in the "giving" category, which I track separately.
Shayanne Gal/Business Insider
We spent a total of $810.01 this week. I track giving separately from the rest of our spending, which this week was $50 to an ALS charity after finding out that an old teammate’s father was diagnosed with the disease, and $72.53 to buying dinner for out-of-state friends who just had their baby. While this isn’t "charity," per se, I separate out all of our giving and track it to encourage us to be more generous with our incomes.
On Sunday, my husband and I got out for a date.
Shayanne Gal/Business Insider
To start out the day, the three of us headed over for breakfast with my family. My grandmother has lived with my parents since I was a baby, and my youngest brother was home from college on summer break. They live less than a half-hour drive away, so we visit them often.
After spending some time hanging outside in their yard enjoying the sunshine, my mother encouraged my husband and I to go for a mini date day. We took her up on the suggestion and made the half-hour walk to downtown, where we went to lunch at one of our favorite local restaurants. My husband had been hanging on to a gift card he’d gotten as a present, so we ended up not spending any money on the meal (including a good tip for our server).
After that, we went for a walk around the town for a bit and eventually ended up at a brewery down near the water. We don’t often get time without kids around, so we take advantage of the adult time to go to 21+ spots. We grabbed a couple of beers and snacked on some of the free popcorn before walking back to my parents’ house.
We drove home, worked in the garden a bit, and caught up on some chores. The weather is usually pretty great in August, so laundry gets hung up on the line on our back deck. I’ve had a clothes buying ban for myself for the last two and a half years (with a few hand me downs from friends), so line drying helps my clothes last longer. Dinner was a low-key meal of leftovers.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
- How to create a travel budget and stick to it, according to someone who’s been traveling abroad for over 2 years
- See all our credit card reviews — from cash-back to travel rewards to business cards — in one place
- How to use a zero-sum budget, the strategy that gives every single dollar a specific job
Source: Business Insider –