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If a family has two cars that transportation number might be right. I last owned a car 9 years ago and back then it was costing me almost $700 a month ($177 payment, insurance, gas, maintenance, a fraction of a costly repair once a year or so, parking, tolls, etc).
On the other hand, my son has no car payment, lives about nine miles from work, pays no tolls, and has free parking. He's a mechanic and drives an older vehicle.
$1560 housing in Morris County? Maybe for an apartment, not a house.... I live in a modest home and I put the full 20% down and my mortgage is nowhere near $1560.
The transportation and healthcare costs are way high though but we both have good insurance through out jobs and we only have 1 car payment for a CPO Honda.
$1560 housing in Morris County? Maybe for an apartment, not a house.... I live in a modest home and I put the full 20% down and my mortgage is nowhere near $1560.
The transportation and healthcare costs are way high though but we both have good insurance through out jobs and we only have 1 car payment for a CPO Honda.
The $1560 figure is rent for a 2 bedroom apartment.
$870 per month for food? maybe at mcdonald's. for a family of four we average at least $1500 - $2k for food. and that's just for groceries i cook at home. eating out adds ...i don't even know.
This is somewhat of an old article, but I stumbled on it today while trying to make a new budget. It gives a breakdown of what is costs to live "comfortably" in every county in NJ. The example used was Morris County. They claim " a family of two adults and two children in Morris County would need to earn a combined $104,121 per year — or $8,677 a month — to live comfortably."
And they broke it down this way:
Housing: $1,560 per month
Food: $870 per month
Child care: $1,634 per month
Transportation: $1,226 per month
Health care: $1,125 per month
Other necessities: $980 per month
Taxes $1,282 per month
Housing is my area of expertise, so I'll focus my comments there.
Yes, these numbers seem way off.
There are currently, in the MLS I use, 23 properties available with a monthly rent between $1,500 & $1,600. Of those, only two, (one in Dover and one in Jefferson) have three bedrooms. While four people in two bedrooms is certainly doable, I wouldn't call it comfortable, especially if the children are different genders.
Assuming a 20% down payment and an interest rate of 4.5%, the monthly mortgage payment of $1,560 would pay for a $385,000 house. That does NOT include insurance or property taxes. The median sale price in Morris County for the last 12 months is approximately $490,000. Would we call 78% of the median "comfortable"? A dubious claim. Especially when you consider that the property taxes on the house will add another $400 to $1,000 per month.
Clearly the numbers are wrong. Perhaps it's just outdated?
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