How much money you think you need monthly, if you don’t need to pay housing?

22 comments

1. Where?

2. “Need”? Probably like $600 a month to cover gas and groceries, plus some incidentals

3. My phone bill is $50 . Electric and Gas in the winter is 100-170/In the Summer it’s much lower. Groceries twice a month generally under 170ish. “fun money” idk under 35? I don’t really spend money I don’t need to spend

   I’m poor so I live on a very strict budget so not paying rent would just give me a bit extra to put in the savings. But since internet/water/garbage is included in rent I’d have to pay for those

4. If I didn’t have to pay for housing and got to absolute bare essentials… Yeah I agree with the $600 comment. But that would be cutting it awfully close to the “Guess what?! You’re dying now!” line of “need”.

5. If I suddenly didn’t have to pay for housing anymore I certainly wouldn’t take a pay cut lol

6. Answers are going to vary wildly based on what people consider *”need”* to mean. There are already answers here mentioning cell phone bills, cable internet, fun money, car payments and health insurance, —it’s arguable you don’t *need* those things.

7. Are we cutting out car payments too? I could live pretty frugally without those two. Like probably $200-300. But then again I realized I didn’t factor in the bills my spouse currently pays ha.

8. What is “need” ?

9. “Need?” I could probably live on five hundred dollars. But it wouldn’t be fun.

10. Need, a person could probably eat on a couple hundred a month but it would not be satisfying.

    Acceptable diet, car insurance, and a cell phone would be closer to 700. This is less than the bare minimum for me. I like to go out and hit up music events and dates regularly so closer to a couple grand a month.

11. Too many variables. What area of the country? Own a car or use mass transit? Bare bones cell phone, o r the whole nine yards? Food costs?

12. Enormously depends on where you live, lifestyle, etc. Need details. Who is paying your cell phone? Are you coming here for college? Urban or rural? Do you have a car?

13. I’m still a student, but I spend about $1,000 a month on food, takeout, entertainment, gas & utilities.

14. Depends what you eat and your tastes

15. around $1500 or so.

16. That is *very* subjective.

    I’m blown away by evening saying $600 or less… For me it’s $4,000.

17. My take home pay is about 3,000 a month with about half that going to rent. My food budget can vary from $600-$900 a month depending on how often I eat out. My clothes budget is probably about $100 and entertainment is probably about $200. I live in DC so it’s easier to just not have a car.

    For my current life style I’d probably need $1500 a month outside of housing, but I could cut that down by more than half if I had to.

18. **Food:** $150-$300, depending on how much takeout I get.

    **Phone:** $100

    **Internet:** $75

    **Electric:** $30 – $50 depending on what time of year it is

    **Health insurance:** $275

    **Dental insurance:** $35

    **Cat stuff (food, litter, meds):** $100

    **Extras:** Probably averages out to like $200 a month. Some months I spend nothing, others I spend like $500 on random crap.

19. Without housing we could truly survive on about $1000. But that’s no vacations or splurging.

    Struggling groceries, basic clothing and other bills

20. At a minimum, I think I could get by on $400, but realistically, our spending — family of 3, with ill in-laws, aging parents, and a special needs nephew — average around $2500, modulo mortgage.

21. Is this renting where many things are included, or owning where nothing is included?

22. I spend about $1000/month on top of housing (not including health insurance), but I could trim that down by quite a bit if I needed to by cutting out entertainment expenses, being more thrifty on food and new clothes, driving and paying for parking less, etc.