• LAVA Moderator: Shinji Ikari

What are your living expenses?

Beagle

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 1, 2001
Messages
5,241
Location
Los Angeles
I'm obviously created this because of the other thread. Mods, if you wanna merge this go ahead.

Anyway, what city do you live in and how much are your living expenses each month? I'm talking rent, utilities, food, car payment and insurance if you have one, cell phone, all that shit.

How many roommates do you have? Do you live in an apartment or house?
 
non-crazy-huge-city-florida
rent: $275 (2/2, 1200 sq. ft, pool, etc., split with fiance)
utilities: $150 (I pay power/water, he pays phone & cable)
car payment: $100 (only til May!)
insurance: $110 (retarded...I'm not that bad of a driver, but I had a weird lapse in insurance a couple of years ago due to moving and missing a non-forwarded bill while on a quarterly payment system)
credit card: $30 (usually something on there)
insurance/tuition:$100

Those are the 'have to pays' and add up to about $765. I make just a little over $1000/month without any student loans, so I try to keep any bills under this. Our groceries are minimal, with lots of things coming out of my s/o salary (he makes a little more than me), or shopping local & from fresh foods. We're also trying to set aside around $50/each a month for a May honeymoon.

We do it. It's not always pretty and we don't get to do a lot of the things we'd like to do, but hopefully it's not for too much longer. If all goes well I'll be done by this time next year! :D
 
you pay $650 total in rent for a 1200sq foot place? wow.

$800 near my school will get you about 500 - 700 square feet lol.

This is why I should probably be more open to moving out of state once I graduate... Los Angeles ain't cheap baby.

*edit*

btw, hi fizzy :)
 
rent - $550
gas- $100
electric - $70
phone - $90
cable/internet - $80
car ins. - $60
food - $400/mo (I'm married and have 2 kids to feed ;))
vehicle gas - $150 - $250/month
I live in a townhouse right outside the city in a suburb.
 
I live in Edina, Minnesota. A southwest suburb of Minneapolis.

  • Rent- $885 / month for 1000 sq. ft
  • Electric - $30 - $100 / month depending on how much I use my television and desktop computer. Together they eat about 1,600 watts / hour.
  • Gas - Included in rent, unlimited usage. (Great for Minnesota winters!)
  • Celluar Phone - $130 / month, voice and data.
  • Cable Television and Internet - $115, premium channels, on-demand, and 8mbps downstream.
  • Food - $200 - $300 / month. I like to eat! :)
I am about $3,000 in debt from minor purchases and from college loans.
 
Living in Sydney...

I pay $95 per week for rent, so ~$380 per month
Bills:
Electricity: ~$100 per quarter
Gas: ~$30 per quarter
Internet: $59.95 per quarter (it's $59.95 per month, but there are 3 of us in the house so we pay one each month :))
Phone: I pay fuck all because I don't use it... so about $35-40 per quarter
Mobile: $97 per month. In that I have a $40 per month handset payment that thankfully finishes in January... then it's down to $57 a month phone bills :)
Credit cards: fuck... credit cards are the bane of my existence... I've reduced my personal credit debt from ~$13,000 to just over $7,000 since February... still have a long way to go to get rid of it, but I'm trying... about half of my income goes to getting ahead on my credit repayments and avoiding interest!
so, basically I pay about $1,000 a month in repaying credit cards 8(8(8(

Food:
I pay about $120 every 2-3 weeks for groceries etc
I allow myself about $10 per day for lunch at uni though. I could cut this out and save myself a fair amount of cash, but it means that leftovers last longer at home, and I'm not eating the same thing twice a day...

Alcohol:
Alcohol is the other bane of my existence... I drink too much... luckily I have a boyfriend who pays for me half the time ;) but hey...

I don't drive, so I don't have to pay for a car which saves me a fuckload of money... no petrol, car payment, insurance, parking, tyres, parking fines, registration etc. Not driving means that I can drink more ;)

So that's about it :)

CB :)
 
rent- 1000/month 2br apartment on the ocean
insurance- 98/month
cell phon-60/month
tuition/school supplies-300/month
gas-125/month
food-200/month
booze-100/month

I live in Santa Cruz which is a farily expensive place to live. Just the other day I saw a 720 square foot house for 729,000 dollars and they had reduced the price from 769,000. Expensive as hell now but hopefully my college education will cover it later down the road.
 
yeah santa cruz is a very nice city from what I've heard.

Anyway, I live in Los Angeles and go to school in Northridge.

If I move out on my own my monthly expenses would include all of the following:

rent - ~$800 for a 1bdroom apt (~500 sq. ft.)
car payment - $265
car insurance - ~$150
cell phone - $50
food - I'm guessing about $200
misc - $100

so it looks like everyone spends roughly about $1500 a month. I'll have to live off a little loan money if I move out, but I think it'll be worth it. It'll just be one year before I gradute. I'll graduate having my car paid off and owing about $8000 in subsidized loans from school.

From what I've seen other people talk about, I don't think $8000 of debt will be too bad, especially since I'll have my degree in accounting in a year.
 
Hi poste :)

I live in Boston...this is our cost of living:

  • 2 bedroom apartment- $800 is what we pay (only because its owned by family it should cost around $1500)
  • Cable(/Internet/Phone- $210
  • Groceries- $90 a week
  • Cell phone- $170 for two lines Nextel
  • Electric- I think is around $100 maybe less though i am not sure
  • Gas for my vehicle- $65 per fill up Gas for other vehicle $75+ per fill up
  • Car Payment- $400
 
nc.

house- 2200
cable -50
groceries-150 weekly
cellphone-115
electric-120
creditcard payment-1500
gas for car-44
car-550
car insurance-120
 
I live in Toronto, in a pretty much 'downtown' location

Rent: 600 (total is 1200, split between me and my BF)
Cell phone: ranges from 60-100
Internet/TV: $84 split two ways
Food: seem to spend between 40-50 every week and a half or so on groceries, this isnt including eating out / grabbing coffee / etc. The odd week is more expensive depending on what we are buying.

Transportation is pretty much a non-cost at the moment. I live walking distance to school, and to work. When I do travel, I use public transportation, but probably spend about $20 a month on transportation if not less.

Heat/Hydro/Water are all included in my rent. My cost of living isnt all that bad actuallly
 
I live in London...

Rent- £200 (I think £1=$1.9 or so) I live in a three-bedroom flat- rent is £800 total. My rent is insanely cheap for London, then again my room is tiny, 8-10 sq. metres.
Bills- £60
Travel- £100 (public transport)
Mobile phone- £30
Food- £80

All equals to £470, but then there seem to be tons of other expenses that don't come on a monthly basis (e.g. course books), as well as going out. A night out can range from £15 if I'm just going to a local bar and drinking cheap pints of beer, to about £50 or more for a night out clubbing.
 
Rent - $1350 per month
Cable + Internet - $87 per month
Electric - Its been $40-50 per month (lots of computers)
 
Cleveland

I live in a one bedroom apartment with my bf. $495. I think it's about 600-700 square feet.

We don't pay water or gas.
The apartment building has a boiler, so we have steam heat, which is also free.

Electric is between $35-$49 month

Phone and DSL - $45 month

Cell- $40 month

Cable $48 month

Car Insurance $73 month

Car is payed off

Parking is $30 a month a piece, so $60 for both of our cars

I also have 3 credit cards that add up to owing about $75 a month. I usually pay more than the minimum.

I usually spend $100 every other week on food for us.
 
(All in Canadian)
Rent+Internet=~400 (1200 b/w 3) (thank god for regulated rents in montreal;))this is in a pretty posh neghborhood that IS residential, more downtown/party street places can run up to 650-750 per person...
Its a 6 1/2, 3 bedrooms @120-140sqft, Kitchen/dining room @~250 sqft, Living room @~200 sqft, Storage/Laundry etc @~250 sqft, along with a tiny porch and a large balcony, tiny ass bathroom though (~60 sqft)

Electricity=20-45 depending on heating
Phone=10-15
Cell=50
Bus Pass=35
Food=~200-300 depending on if I eat out
Weed=120-150 a month
Alcohol for the apartment...less than 100?
Going out (includes concerts, bars, dates (those I usually do a meal made at home+wine, then a drink or two outside)=~200-250

Adds up to about 1100-1200 a month i suppose

Tuition is covered by an account that my parents and I put money into jointly when I was younger (~18k a year...really what I earned was peanuts compared to this...I guess I should thank my parents for raising us cheap, this education is worth more...)

Though if I'm broke I can cut this to the bone (~800 a month) if I need to
 
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