I am a strict budgeter, and a less strict but still dedicated budget follower.
For the sake of the discussion, I'll provide recommendations based on the idea that you take home roughly $6500 per month which makes your mortgage around $1300 a month, which would be reasonable for a small family living in a small condo (which I know you aren't because you built a deck, but just act like you are for budgeting purposes).
- Food: Right now you're spending $1300 on food (all combined), which is $325 per person per month for 4 people, or $430 for 3 people. $200 is what the average Canadian spends on groceries (per person, per month) so you should bring your overall food costs down to about $250 per person, per month.
- Entertainment is $135 which isn't bad, but you can probably lower that by half. If you're making more, that means you're spending more than $135, and that means you should cut even more.
- Books is unreasonable. Use the library, it's free. You could cut that item almost entirely.
Everything else seems mostly fine, honestly. But, let's say you're making twice that amount. Then I would look at cutting the things mentioned above by a lot, and also reducing your online shopping and personal grooming.
Basically, you can save $350 a month fairly easily if your budget is $6500. But I think it's probably a lot higher, so you can probably save a lot more. You're basically blowing 5-6% of your monthly budget. Not a lot when you're not making a lot, but hundreds of dollars regardless (and a number that only goes up the more you make).
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