Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

lets stay on topic and not comment on typos :D, beside that my wife is
just behind me, so I say one at the time is enough

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

Job will be the most important factor...and what's a major city?

Boston, it is expensive, Portland, ME is massively cheaper, but compared to other cities in Maine, it's expensive...and Belfast is considered a city, even a decent sized one, but it's a 6.5K population.

Things like groceries will be tough, places like Maine, some things are going to be loads cheaper than in MA, but then also much more likely to be affected by the seasons. You can shop cheaply at Walmart, or go crazy at Wholefoods and have a budget of $60-300 a week...it's going to depend on what you want and where you shop. There was a thread last year that was really quite good on this topic.

Cost of getting about also can be quite cheap in Portland, ME but leave you driving loads more in NH or western MA so if you're commuting an hour a day it'll level things out.

Some rough, universal basics though:

$1K per 6 months car insurance
$100-150 month for cable/phone/internet
$45-100 a month for mobile phone

Heating a place in northern Maine, in a old, drafty house, with oil will be massively different to a new apartment that's gas, so that's a range of $60-600 a month during the winter months and the flip for cooling costs in the summer. It can be anything in between.

Something that'll have an effect is cost of rentals. You could rent a 3 bed house in some parts of Maine for $800 a month and not even get a studio apartment for double that in parts of MA.

Oh and your initial petrol costs are looking more likely to be weekly costs if living in ME/NH and western MA.

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

Don't move to NYC, especially Manhattan, then. All of the supermarkets we encountered in our brief time living there - on the Upper East Side no less - were dingy with filthy floors.

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

None. :( .... I have a fruit cake which my mother baked that we brought back from the UK in the summer, but I have been saving it until the cooler weather. I will cut into into ½"x2½"x4" slices and it will last me a couple of months. Mrs P and little Miss P eat no cake.

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

Dover, NH is a great little city. It's tiny though...but there's a few nice towns around it as well and York, ME just over the bridge is lovely.

Winters will suck major dingles though.

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

My electric at the last place was about $150 a month on avg - this was a 2,000 square foot place and I had 2 air conditioners in a couple of windows in the summer. I now pay about $80 a month in a similar place because I am on National Grid who are a bit cheaper (till this winter when they'll be sticking their prices up).

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

Ah, yes, winters :eek:

So maybe add Set of Snow Tires ( x2 - my set cost $800 ) to the budget - and snowplough service if you have a house with a long driveway and don't want to be up at 5am shoveling ( otherwise buy yourself a snowblower )

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

All, I decided to act on your posts so Exchequer agrees to top up the grocery budget :D,
I added 150 for electricity, it doesn't account for air conditioning, though.


Summary:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- $ 900 groceries (possibly in a range of $600 to 900)
- $ 300 car insurance - 2 cars
- $ 20 Umbrella Insurance
- $ 120 internet, phone, TV
- $ 200 propane based heating / air conditioning (avg) 3 bedroom (~2000 sq./ft.)
{oil based NE - might be as much as about $600-800 per month from November-March, overall yearly 6K - 3,000 sq ft.}
- $ 150 electricity (avg / month) 5 people - 3 bedroom house (up to $200 - 250 month)
- $ ___ extra school spendings (after school activities including sport related)
- $ 150 3 cell plans
- $ 250 (70c / litre / on avg 3050 km shared by 2 cars per month with avg 10l / 100km)
- $ ___ water (n/a if renting ? - avg / month)
- $2000 rent - 3 bedroom (~200 sq./ft.)
- $____ medical insurance - ($300 to $1500) family of 5 depending on work based benefits (if any) and an income
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GT: $4090

Pointers:
- get a job with medical insurance included,
- rent a house, with efficient / modern heating system preferably propane based,
- rent a house in the within a (even small) city area, it would lower gas costs

Any other thoughts, especially on electricity (just have had one report so far), water, school and after school spendings

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

I am now married in Alabama , just the two of us will spend $200 a week on groceries and we eat out twice a week. So that grocery bill of $200 only covers five days for the two of us :unsure:

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

When you are making sandwiches for school lunches, for 3 kids, you'll go through a loaf per day. At $4 a pop that would be around $100 a month, a sixth of their budget before you put anything in the bread.

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

OP,

I am not sure where you are getting your grocery figures from, especially for a family of five.

We struggle to keep the food budget to around $500 a month and there are three of us. We do shop at Wegmans mostly, and both of us cook fresh (I am good at making lots of pasta bakes in particular, and we don't eat out) ... unless you want to be on the 'pasta' diet like us and/or are a Gordon Ramsey type chef, you are probably going to find it difficult to subsist on that budget for a family of 5 ...

Hoffage

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

now, judging from your posts so far, we need about $50K (NET) just to get going
that's not including any medical insurance costs and with - possibly -
minimal heating / air conditioning bills, and just average rent estimate.

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

If you're currently at $4k a month for very basic living costs, then it looks as though the six figure salary mentioned as a minimum in post 3 is pretty much spot on. Well done Rusty Chainsaw! :D

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

If we followed this admonition, BE would have closed down a decade or more ago.

Hmm just noticed the missing apostrophe

Re: How much is enough – Northeast
 

Or clothes, or cinema tickets, or meals out, or new shoes, or holidays, or household items, or birthday presents, or.....etc, etc.

As I said above (we posted at the same time), seems like RC was spot on with his estimate for a family of five to live on.