I went away a few days and this thread blew up. We have some long winded folks, heh heh heh.
FWIW – our household budget (including taxes, health insurance and OOP medical expenses, etc) is $84k/year for a family of four.
Unlike the fictional family in the OP – we have a paid for home and paid for cars… but we still have to insure, maintain, and pay taxes on them. We’ve lived on this budget for several years… so it’s doable and still have a very upper middle class lifestyle. We *choose* not to eat at restaurants a lot because we like the food we cook.
I could definitely cut costs by cutting out organic meats and produce. We’ve already cut out most processed food. We do a lot of things for “green” reasons – that coincidentally save money. Like the shop towels Brian mentioned above, rather than paper towels. I make my own chemical free cleaners (vinegar, baking soda, tea tree oil.) I dry about half of my laundry on the line.
I also repair rather than replace whenever possible. This includes mending clothes, fixing appliances and autos, etc. Again – the motivation is to consume less, to be more green – but it ends up saving money, too.
I’ve found the more I conserve (as in resources) the more I conserve (money). Not bad for a liberal like me. LOL.
