Our income tends to range between $9,000 and $11,000, depending on the month, so we've budgeted to make sure that our total expenses (including savings) are below the $9,000 low-end for income. I should also note that any business-related expenses are not reported in these data.
Housing is our most expensive category with a total of $2,130, plus utilities, while student loans are not far behind at $1,966.
We bought our house 3.5 years ago and had the option to purchase either a smaller and less expensive home or we could've literally gone for broke as we "qualified" for a much more expensive mortgage. We chose to land in the middle and couldn't be happier with our decision. Our home is close to parks, pools, a downtown area, and hiking/biking trails that connect everything. In the summer, you can't keep our daughter inside — and we wouldn't change it.
The student loan payment is relatively high when compared with many of our peers, but honestly, we're happy to have it at that level. The loans currently represent what we have left to pay on Monica's 4-year dental school program. Three years ago we refinanced and consolidated the total (near $225,000 at the time) to a 10-year fixed loan at 5.2% interest, which was much better than the 6%-8% range we had been paying.
Up until two months ago we had been driving 11- and 10-year-old cars, but a recent incident sent us back to the car market for the first time in a while. We did something I vowed never to do again in buying a new car, but our plans to pay off this loan early and drive our new Outback for another decade made us comfortable with the choice.
Aside from food/toiletries and the money that currently heads to our savings account (emergency fund), we have only one other expense over $500 — our monthly payment for childcare. This category will more than double when the new baby is born, but with the way we align values in our family, we're happy to pay a premium here.
Some other categories like travel, medical, and miscellaneous, which includes gifts and my gym membership aren't necessarily paid each month, but the annual payments (or large sum payments) break down to about these monthly costs. We have an automatic transfer setup into a separate account for these planned expenses — pretty much like an escrow account would hold taxes and insurance for your home… we just manage this escrow account.