How much do we spend each month?

How much of your income is allocated to fixed expenses each month?
What are the spending that you can trim?

I update our Finance Spreadsheet monthly and my wife always thinks I siao (yes... in addition to niao..) and she will snigger and walk away whenever I'm looking at the spreadsheet, cause I'm always analysing and asking her what are the things we can cut on.

These are the fixed expenses for our household (joint account) at this point;

• Monthly Mobile Subscription (2 lines) - $145 approx.
• Definitely something that is pricey and I aim to cut this when our 2 year contracts end. Likely will be changing to Sim only plans that cost 25-30+ a month.

• Insurance/ILP for both - $1,336
• Another item that I am looking to reduce, although this can also be seen as savings/investments for some people? I personally think this can be reduced by switching to term plans and investing the excess, will blog about this once I have the quote from insurer available for comparison
• One factor on this is my wife's reluctance to change/cancel her current plans and she doesn't really understand (or don't want to) my point, so even if it makes sense numbers wise I might still stick to the current plan *shrugs* I think its the idea that there is a cash value and your money is not 'thrown' away like for term? 

• Fibre Internet - $42
• I spend quite a bit of time at home now, not sure if I want to reduce this and get slower internet which would result in videos streaming slower when we are watching Netflix etc...

• Baby's Limited Payment Insurance (payable till 2032) - $202
• Although I now believe most of us should have term plans instead, this policy is bought with the intention of it being a gift to my son thus will not be practising what I preach regarding term plans for this! :P 

• Domestic Helper - $610 (salary and levy)
• Not exactly an expense someone who calls himself frugal will have, but the helper is to care for my son while both of us work full time jobs so I guess this is a necessity? 

Total Fixed Expense Monthly - $2,355

For the rest of our joint expenses which are not fixed, the below are the averages over the past few months:

• Singapore Power Bills - $150 approx.
• I'm not exactly proud of my current utility bills, this is something I'm trying to cut down. I've been utilising the fan in my room more often than not nowadays though my son's air-condition is always on when he sleeps, he sweats very very easily thus not wanting to have him wake throughout the night due to sweat, I didn't insist on the fan for him. I think the fact that we cook almost daily for him and his daily baths also results in higher gas/water fees as well.

• Groceries - about $300-$400
• includes household items such as detergent, shampoo etc in addition to vegetables, meat etc

• Baby expenses - $200
• Diapers, milk powder etc

• Family Meals - $300
• Expenses when we go out with either my/her family

• Misc (fuel, movies, etc) - $100
• We don't own a car, just fuel when we use the family car

Total - Approx $1,150

Total Joint Monthly Expenses - Approx $3,485


We both contribute about 65% of our take home income to the joint account and the rest of the 35% will be used to pay for each individual's transport/food expenses. I personally keep my personal expenses as low as possible and aim for expenses (food//transport/treats for friends/shopping if ever etc) to be within $600 per month and I'll park the leftover from my 35% into the stash/joint account waiting to invest.

For my wife, I always ask her to give me (the joint account) more to invest from this 35% but will receive either a) a death stare instead or b) 我没有钱给你了lar! (I no money give you already!)

I think I make my wife sound really terrible but to be fair to her, I'm very glad and lucky that she is willing to let me manage a big bulk of her monthly income even though she still needs her monthly 'happy fund' to buy random stuffs and eat her 'happy food', so this 35% of happiness, I shall not touch..

Taking into account the above expenses (fixed + variable expenses + my $600 and my wife's happy fund), I would say we are saving about 44% of our monthly salary.
I'm not including the insurance portion as savings even though technically that is, I feel that its like CPF - I have it but cannot touch it as part of my FIRE fund, so I'm not including it as part of my percentage for saving at this point.

Based on MMM's early retirement table, 44% means I will only be able to retire in about 19 years or so...

However I think I can cut it by a number of years as the fixed expenses I have now can be removed or reduced eventually. For example, I don't expect to have a helper in another 3-5 years' time and I also will stop paying for my insurance premiums 10 years down the road (and this is a huge chunk of my expense today). I also will have tax rebates meaning I do not have to pay taxes for the upcoming 1-2 years (or more if I have my 2nd child) due to the Parenthood Tax Rebate.

I do however expect to have some additional costs such as childcare, tuition fees for my son soon so that's another factor I will need to take into account.

I expect our annual expense to be around the $30,000 mark annually (after mortgage) when I do retire so by using the 4% rule I would require $750,000. (I'm not sure if SG people use the 4% rule as I've not seen it YET on local FIRE blogs.. But it does make sense to me)

I should reach this by 12/13 years based on $2688 monthly contribution and 6% gains/interest annually - $2688 and 6% are both conservative figures (My base is more than what I used for this calculation, I actually contribute more (around mid 3k range and I expect the gains to be more than 6% so I do think 10 years is definitely possible!)

Above chart taken from The Calculator Site

Having said that, I believe I will still continue working until I hit the magical double comma club ($1,000,000) but knowing I have the 'FU' money will work wonders for my stress levels even before I hit that figure!

I might be looking at things too simplistically but I do the numbers are fine and I should be on target for FIRE within 15 years minimally.

Now that we have my expenses out in the open, I definitely don't think I'm very very frugal with household expenses more than 4k a month, I just spend on what I think is worth it. My wife and I are very tamchiak and we are more willing to spend on food than other kind of expenses - thus when we go out to eat as a family we don't usually scrimp as long as it's not excessive.

The end goal is important but the journey should be peppered with treats here and there as well right?