Ask the Readers: What Is Your Biggest Monthly Expense?
Editor's Note: Congratulations to Jeff, Kelli, and Christie for winning this week's contest!
An important part of budgeting is figuring out how much we spend each month on various things — utilities, groceries, mortgages, credit card debt, etc. — and a popular tip for lowering our monthly expenses is to find a way to slash the biggest item on the list.
What is your biggest monthly expense? What percentage of your budget does it take up, approximately? Can you think of any way to lower this expense, and does it make sense for your situation to do so?
Tell us what your biggest monthly expense is and we'll enter you in a drawing to win a $20 Amazon Gift Card!
Win 1 of 3 $20 Amazon Gift Cards
We're doing three giveaways — here's how you can win!
Mandatory Entry:
- Post your answer in the comments below. One commenter will be randomly selected to win a $20 Amazon Gift Card!
For Extra Entries:
- You can tweet about our giveaway for an extra entry. Also, our Facebook fans can get an extra entry too! Use our Rafflecopter widget for your chance to win one of the other two Amazon Gift Cards:
If you're inspired to write a whole blog post OR you have a photo on flickr to share, please link to it in the comments or tweet it.
Giveaway Rules:
- Contest ends Monday, April 27th at 11:59 p.m. Pacific. Winners will be announced after April 27th on the original post. Winners will also be contacted via email.
- You can enter all three drawings — once by leaving a comment, once by liking our Facebook update, and once by tweeting.
- This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered, or associated with Facebook.
- You must be 18 and US resident to enter. Void where prohibited.
Good Luck!
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Rent is currently our biggest monthly expense, costing us approximately 20% of our take-home pay. We've been saving aggressively for the past four years, and just made an offer on our first home. With a 20% down payment and a 15-year mortgage, our monthly payment will go up by a couple hundred dollars, but with plenty of room for a large garden and deep pantry, we expect that to be offset by lower food costs and tax deductions. We could lower our monthly payment with a 30-year mortgage, but it would add another $100K in interest paid out over the life of the loan, so we're willing to keep our belts tight instead!
My biggest monthly expense is childcare.
Food for us and our pets.
Depending on the month, the biggest expense is either mortgage or credit card.
Daycare. We pay about 1100$/month for daycare and only about 800$ for mortgage.
By far it's our mortgage
Mortgage is #1, with daycare for 3 kids a close second.
Like most people, my biggest expense is my mortgage.
Rent is the biggest expense right now. At 20% of net income it's pretty good and allows us to save/invest a lot. However, we are now looking at houses and if that goes through I think our mortgage will be closer to 50% of net! That will be quite a change...
My student loans!
My biggest expense if my mortgage payment!
My biggest monthly expense is rent.