Post your frugal budget

[cendrillon]

For the frugal minded of us it might be fun to compare budgets and share tips on how to drive down costs. So post your frugal (or frugalish) monthly budget.

Here's our monthly budget for 2 adults and 2 young kids. I haven't included vacations here since these can vary widely depending on people's individual situations, plus some travel hacking can really help keep travel costs low. I also haven't included rent since I think people's housing situations also vary pretty widely.

Groceries $3800
Mobile (2 lines 5 GB LTE) $192
Internet + TV (100 Mbps) $198
Transport (Trams and buses) $320
Clothes $1000
Restaurants $3200
Health insurance (12M annual limit per person) $930
Utilities $2000
Hobbies $1000

Total $12,640

Utilities for us is really bad due to AC. We're going to have our old AC replaced with a more energy efficient model. I'm aiming to get this under $1000 soon.

So what's your budget like? Any tips you'd like to share on how to drive those costs down?

[cendrillon]

Original Post Deleted

We're going the local route for school since our kids are fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin and we want that to keep improving. Our apartment management fee is pretty low, around $1300. I think its less interesting to compare housing costs since some people bought long ago when prices were cheap where as others are paying a lot for rent. There's less useful tips to share on that front.

How about you, do you have a budget or some frugal tips to share?

[civil_servant]

How much do you spend on travel?

[East_coast]

We're going the local route for school. Our apartment management fee is pretty low, around $1300. I think its less interesting to compare housing costs since some people bought long ago when prices were cheap where as others are paying a lot for rent. There's less useful tips to share on that front.

How about you, do you have a budget or some frugal tips to share?

I guess not that much you can cut

- Restaurants $3200
Eat cheaper and cook more?

- Health insurance (12M annual limit per person) $930
As discussed in another thread. This could be somewhere you look to reduce

- Utilities $2000
Seems high but many variables. I would also suggest getting a ceiling fan fitted.
https://hk.wellindal.com/home/orbego...SABEgIgK_D_BwE

Did you fit window film and or thermal blinds?

What type of aircon are you going for?

[jgl]

- Utilities $2000
Seems high but many variables. I would also suggest getting a ceiling fan fitted.

Did you fit window film?

What type of aircon are you going for?

It's worth pointing out that there's a big difference between DC and AC fans when it comes to power consumption.

[cendrillon]

How much do you spend on travel?

We have about 800k miles from travel hacking over the last year so we don't spend much on airfares. We either do short trips to places like Thailand where really nice accommodation through Airbnb is cheap, or we do long haul trips and stay with relatives. I would say this averages out to around $1300 per month.

How about you?

[cendrillon]

I guess not that much you can cut

- Restaurants $3200
Eat cheaper and cook more?

- Health insurance (12M annual limit per person) $930
As discussed in another thread. This could be somewhere you look to reduce

- Utilities $2000
Seems high but many variables. I would also suggest getting a ceiling fan fitted.
https://hk.wellindal.com/home/orbego...SABEgIgK_D_BwE

Did you fit window film and or thermal blinds?

What type of aircon are you going for?

I'm in the process of fitting film now.

For AC there's two models I'm looking at. One is from Daikin. It runs on R32 refrigerant and has a DC inverter. Power consumption is 1315 W for a 17100 BTU/hr unit.

The other is from General. It's a bit cheaper and uses 1190 W with 17700 BTU/hr.

These are both big improvements on our current General AC which uses 1890 W.

[jgl]

I believe that power consumption figures for air conditioners are self reported, there is no verification despite it these figures turning up on government sites.

[Matt30]

If I understand correctly, you can feed a family of 4 for $7,000 per month?
Impressive.

[cendrillon]

If I understand correctly, you can feed a family of 4 for $7,000 per month?
Impressive.

I wouldn't call this a lean budget by any means. We only eat organic meat and eggs, avoid things from China and eat out around 6 times a week (a mix of breakfast, lunch and dinner).

We have friends who don't eat out often and spend around $4500 eating a healthy and balanced diet. I'd say that's pretty typical for locals.