Our Household Budget

Without further ado... below is our monthly budget. Note there is no "spending" allocation. DH buys coffee in the mornings and this is built into his gas budget so if he conserves gas, he gets more "spending money". He does car pool often so this helps in that department. Same goes for savings in other areas. Usually we decide together where the savings will be spent - sometimes it is a given, like this month, we needed to buy costumes for the boys for Halloween. We also have some cushion built into our budget since DH's income can be variable with overtime and bad weather days. 

Current Monthly Household Budget

Housing Expenses	Amount	Explanation
Mortgage	$1,521	We make weekly payments (DH gets paid weekly).
Property Tax	$442	Our city has quite high property taxes. We also have a fairly large lot by city standards, back onto "ravine", and are in a desirable location.
House Insurance	$77
Water Bill	$30	This bill comes quarterly so this is a monthly average.
Electricity Bill	$125	Average
Natural Gas (furnace, stove, hot water heater)	$125	Average
Insurance (Car Insurance, Life Insurance)	$360	Currently we have a significant life/disability insurance policy. We wanted to have this because we don’t have our mortgage paid off and at the time we got the policy, DH was the sole earner. He also works in a field where injury rates are quite high. We plan on scaling back/eliminating the life insurance once our house is paid off and we have some investments.
Investments
RESPs	$75	For both kids. It is not much but if we stay with this contribution, they would each have enough money for approx. 3 years of tuition at a local university. We’re comfortable knowing we could at least help them with this. We also want them to play some role in contributing to their own education.
TFSAs	$216	DH and I each have one. This money is only used for “emergencies” and is therefore not a substantial amount.
Household Expenses
Home Phone, Cable TV, Internet, Cell phone	$230	Note: Includes long distance package, some specialty tv channels, and a PVR (rent-to-own - $40 more over the term than to purchase flat out). Cellphone is a  smart phone on a pretty good student plan $60/month
Cell phone	$70	Note: Cellphone is a smart phone on a pretty good student plan $60/month – yes this is under my name too...
Groceries	$520	Includes all household cleaning supplies, diapers, personal hygiene items, etc.
Gas	$465	DH travels approx. 120km round trip to work. I travel about 30 km.
Childcare	$600	Family member watches kids (1 f/t, 1 p/t)
Debt payments	$1,540	Another post.
Total Monthly Budget	$6,396