our general budget picture--monthly average for the past six months

[captainspoke]

I'm not sure this will be of any use, but since I figured it out I feel the need to post...

My wife and I settle up our budget and shared expenses every 2-3 months, and since we just did april, may and june, I went to the january, february, and march sheets and worked out the averages for the following. I skipped going back for the last six months of 2023, I'll guess that that probably wouldn't affect the averages too much. So these are the rows on our budget, and the monthly average for these six months:

groceries: ¥112,368
eating out: ¥4,478
drug stores: ¥6,870
power/elec: ¥17,673
water/sewer: ¥6,870
city gas: ¥8,602
internet/phone: ¥6,135
kerosene: ¥9,578
house maintenance: ¥0
other things: ¥13,946

total: ¥184,762

Some details. We live in an old stand-alone house (probably 55-60yrs old, long since paid for), which may explain some of the utility costs. We heat with a combination of kerosene, gas, and electric, depending on the room and who is where and when. Our 'downstairs', maybe a 10 mat DK and 12-14 mat living, are kept varyingly warm most of the time, one uses kerosene, the other gas. And the utility bills do lag a little, so jan-june on paper might actually be december-may showing more winter heating cost. Bedroom upstairs warmed at night/cooled in summer, is electric (a/c). We also have a gas dryer (used more in winter), and cook with gas. Hot water anytime is via kerosene.

Eating out is low, since what usually happens is one of us offers to treat the other, or we split it somehow at the time of the meal. House maintenance is oddly zero--sometimes I have some around-the-house projects I do, but nothing made it onto the budget for these six months. 'Other things' at least includes property tax paid in spring for the year (¥50k), and we pay the chokai fee yearly, too (¥12k)--for a full year those would average out lower, but there would be other 'other things' the rest of the year.

What's not on this budget: we still each have our own cars, and pay any costs for these on our own (mine's old, and if I switch that will be out of my pocket--not on the shared budget). Any personal hobbies are also not on this budget--eg, the camera and lenses I bought are on me, and the wife's music-related stuff is on her. Travel, personal or together, is handled on its own budget sheet (eg, our recent trip to the US). So we split that monthly ¥184k average (these six months, the high was ¥240k, low was ¥116k).

This kind of shared/common portion of our budget vs personal portion has existed since we got married. We both worked similar jobs (uni teaching), so our financial lives have been separate (incomes, taxes, healthcare, and now pensions), and tho I retired earlier and lost regular income, we still split the common stuff this same way.

Questions/comments?

[CluelessToshika]

I'm not sure this will be of any use

I find it interesting to see what other people do with their money

I'd reciprocate, 'cept we don't actually "budget" per-se right now, which will have the Personal Finance Advice klaxons going off, but we do habitually minimize expenditure / avoid lifestyle creep and I have a pretty good idea of general monthly outgoings, so ballpark figure for us (excluding housing) is about ¥250,000 (25万) for 3 people (one primary school-aged child) with a not dissimilar make-up to yours, except the energy bills are a lot lower.

Anyway now I think about it, I'll start keeping track in more detail and see if there's anything I've missed which could be optimized.