San Diego or bust (Mesa: loans, how much, home)

[bloom]

Originally Posted by cruitr

You need to give my wife shopping and cooking lessons. Her Costco register tape from yesterday's shopping trip was over $300!

$300 for Costco is standard. What her frequency (of Costco visits)? I suggest every ~2.5 months.

[docmcstuffin]

Originally Posted by cruitr

You need to give my wife shopping and cooking lessons. Her Costco register tape from yesterday's shopping trip was over $300!

I give my wife props for that. She's a fantastic cook. Much better than a lot of restaurants out there, all w/in a $350-400/month budget. Our Costco bill is around $100-200 and we go once every 1-2 months (average 1.5 months). We don't buy a lot of food from Costco, mainly house hold stuff like paper towels. A lot of time, food is cheaper at local supermarket when they're on sale. Eggs and ground beef/pork and frozen fish are usually the only food I buy from Costco. You just have to see what's on sale for that week at the local supermarket and make food out of the ingredients that you just bought on sale.

[shmoov_groovzsd]

Costco has it down. Their stock has been exploding even from the depths of the recession.
We leave that place dropping at least $200 but really every 1.5 months or so. 20% of the cart is it is usually the stuff we intended to go there for, the rest is what Costco anticipated we needed but didnt know yet (eg. LED retrofit recessed lights that we were planning on getting at some point but magically showed up there) lol

[earlyretirement]

Originally Posted by GMUAlum08

Do you eat lobster every night?

Actually I guess $900 isn't too bad, but we only spend about $400-$450 a month on groceries for two people

Originally Posted by cruitr

You need to give my wife shopping and cooking lessons. Her Costco register tape from yesterday's shopping trip was over $300!

Actually I think Sassberto is doing good if he has 2 kids. We actually spend on average about $500 each week (Probably $2,000 a month or so) on groceries and stuff for the house like cleaning supplies, toilet paper, paper towels, etc.

We have 2 young kids. ABSOLUTELY you can do it more affordably but we're not eating lobster every night either. But it does include eating steak, chicken, fish, fresh fruits and vegetables, etc. each week. Also, just stuff the pediatrician recommended like Pediasure for the kids, etc.

And my wife does go to places like Trader Joes and Sprouts but we also do the other stores including Whole Foods once in a while.

Sure people can do it much more affordably but it's also easy to spend more on groceries as well with kids. GMUAlum mentioned he spends about $450 per month on just two of them. We actually end up spending more on stuff for the kids vs. us I think. Because the kids are kind of picky eaters.

[e30is]

After reading this thread I'm not going to complain about my grocery bill ever again.

[earlyretirement]

Originally Posted by docmcstuffin

I agree with what you just said. I was just trying to dispute your statement about SD is NOT for many people out there raising young kids and that $100k salary is nothing to write home about. $100k is well above the Median. So, you can easily thrive in SD, if you just spend your money wisely.

Hey, sure we can agree to disagree. I'll stand by my advice that SD is NOT for many people out there raising young kidS vs. other cities just due to the cost of living, job market, economy and prices of housing.

I think anyone with 2 or 3 kids will probably agree with me that $100k isn't anything too special for San Diego to live a good lifestyle and send their kids to great schools and live in a nice house and save for their retirement.

I don't even think it's necessarily a matter of "spending money wisely". And we all have different retirement goals in life. $100k for a family of 4 or 5 isn't anything special for San Diego....

[bounty80]

500/week - 2000/month in groceries!?

[NYSD1995]

I'm counting all household expenses, costco, trader joes, vons, etc. Diapers cost 30+ bucks a box!

comparisons to the median income are misleading, because the median income includes the huge number of retirees with paid off homes, military renters with subsidized housing and the very large number of working poor, not to mention all the people with marginal jobs who bought pre 2003 or so who are sitting on 800/mo mortgages. Median income of your typical 'middle class' 2-income San Diego household in an area with good schools is considerably higher once you factor out the people paying well below market rate for housing.

[earlyretirement]

Originally Posted by bounty80

500/week - 2000/month in groceries!?

Originally Posted by Sassberto

I'm counting all household expenses, costco, trader joes, vons, etc. Diapers cost 30+ bucks a box!

Not just groceries. As mentioned, all the household cleaning supplies, groceries, diapers, etc. (just as Sassberto does, I lump everything into one category. I don't actually break out in Quicken groceries vs. household stuff as I find it would be impossible or too time consuming entering it into Quicken so it's all in the same category. Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Albertson's, Sprouts, Farmers Market stuff, Target all go into the same category. Obviously if something expensive is needed I'll break it out of the category but I track everything in Quicken so I know how much we spend each month down to the penny.

And this is even accounting for the fact that our son is now potty trained and only using diapers at night when he sleeps. Before when both kids were younger and not potty trained we spent even more.

Yep. It all adds up.

[jwblue]

I think it can be done if there is a major downsizing in the home.

I would get the minimum size home that the family can live in.