Family Budget Example: Sample Budget for a Family of Five

This real-life example of a family budget example will show a sample budget for a family of five family members — real, hard numbers.

We have been married for over 16 years… man oh man.  Budgeting is HARD.

(Sidenote: This post was written in 2014, and I have updated it since then — but have kept the original framework, but we’ve been married 24 years now — I also include a free family budget worksheet/calculator)

Also, be sure to listen to my recent podcast on your home economy:

Also, finances have ALWAYS been part of our routine. If you’re looking to get your home into workable systems this is a valuable tool that moms love!

Family Budget Examples

The Road to my Real Budget

I also have a podcast all about this subject!

The Spend Nothing Budget

I think we initially started with a newlywed budget that was just “spend nothing” — which, for the most part, worked.  I worked part-time for a pediatrician, Drew taught trombone lessons. He often had sob stories from parents as to why they couldn’t pay.  They bartered with us for items.  Seriously.

Then, I started working full time for a nursing home and Drew worked as a Teacher’s Assistant at BYU.  Again, budgeting was something we lacked.  That continued through Drew getting a teaching job and me changing men’s catheters once a month (yeah baby!).  I don’t think we ever had a concrete “spend this much on ______ ” type of a budget.  We still tended to the “spend nothing” budget but leaned a bit further from that because we were both making money, although not much.

At this point, I decided it was REALLY important to start tracking. Initially I used Quicken, but it became too expensive and painful to use. I have recently switched to Moneyspire, and I tolerate it.

Mix of a Budget and Spend Nothing

Then we moved to CA and we were both working.  I was also getting sign-on bonuses and I was SO busy I didn’t have time to budget.  At that point, I realized that having a lot of money wasn’t making us happy.  At. all.  When I was finally able to cut down my hours I realized that budgeting was important.  There was indeed a happy medium between “spend nothing” and go crazy and go to Costco weekly. {I should say we have never had a “go crazy” period of our marriage, but we were not very careful when we first moved to CA — no couponing, just trying to keep our heads above water — and I would guess a lot of couples where both of them work AND they have small children, lie in that same boat}

Full Budgeting

I would guess around the time our second child was born, we came into this budgeting system.  It is somewhat like Dave Ramsey‘s, but here it is — our actual, real-life family budget! (please see my addendum at the bottom):

Example budget for a family of 5

Our monthly income is really variable (because as a nurse I pick up different shifts each month) — so, we place extra money in a savings as buffer for months I don’t work as much. Figuring out how to mange your irregular income is important for you to do. Knowing how much money you have is a big win.

This is our real-life budget — and I’ll split it into

• Bills
• Household Money

Bills {this is an average and includes: Mortgage, cell phone, water/trash, internet, Netflix, Car insurance, electricity, HOA, life insurance, lunch money preschool tuition and health insurance — which we pay out of pocket for me and the kids}.  I’m not sharing our mortgage costs, as it is INSANELY low (thank you Arizona real estate downturn just as we moved here), but I will share the rest.

A breakdown on that money (this is our 2018 update on the monthly expenses #’s). If you have things that aren’t paid monthly, I would recommend counting your annual expenses in that category (possibly by looking at bank statements) and finding the monthly average you’ll need.

• Cell phones $125 (we split a family plan with my parents and I just send them a check every month)
• Water/trash $85 (again, an average — but this is fairly constant)
• Internet $75
• Netflix $10
• Car insurance $190 (2 adult and a teen driver)
• Electric Bill $150 (it’s fairly less right now and way more in the summer, and while this is hard to budget for it is what it is)
• HOA $38
• Life Insurance $50 (we each pay quarterly, I just took our payment and divided it by 3, we each use different carriers because it was cheaper that way)
• Lunch Money $25 (my kids get to get school lunch once a week)
• Health insurance premiums $529 (this is down from $950 we were paying on traditional insurance — we are now on a Christian Health Share for our health care).
• Mortgage Payment is around $1300 for the mortgage, insurance and property taxes

All of this money is pre-funded from the month before, and covers our basic needs.  I will talk about that a bit in a later blog post.

Then we have household money each month, that totals just about 1k (much of this is variable expenses, but I try to average them here)

• Weekly money $360 ($90/week) — this pays for groceries and any incidentals
• Costco $200
• Gas $200
• Dating $100
• Clothing/Household $100
• Personal Money $100 – discretionary spending of 50/person
• Allowance $50

Sidenote — using a grocery price comparison list saves us a ton on groceries!

On top of all that we pay 10% of our income each month to the church in tithing
We also contribute money to our savings which is included in our monthly budget.
Child Care (while I am at work)  is not actually part of our budget because I feel like it’s a bill, I will talk more about it during my “pre-funding” post.

Every month, I put about $5200 to cover expenses in our bank account.

We also contribute to a retirement account for long-term goals, and have a few accounts with short-term goals (travel, car care). We also have a savings account for unexpected expenses, so we don’t have to go into debt.

Remember YOUR first step is figuring out your personal finances, the budget categories you want to use, and possibly how to use extra money. That will really help you take a closer look at your financial situation.

For us, we really made a go of our side hustles, and that gave us more sources of income for greater financial stability.

Sample Budget for a family of 3 (or 4)

A lot of a family’s costs are fixed costs.  Mortgage, like power & garbage, will all stay pretty similar.  Just adjust my budget to fit your numbers.

So, there it is, black and white. That’s what we spend each month.

Clearly — there are other things not covered in this monthly budget but these are the majority of things (we have savings to cover car servicing, etc).

I am a part-time nurse, Drew is a teacher.  We are putting a fair amount into savings each month to cover the masters that Drew is getting, but we still make ends meet at home.

I’d love to know what your thoughts on this budget are.  Do you think we spend too much?  Do you think it’s too little?  I will say that we utilize Goodwill QUITE a lot.  Much more than most people would find comfortable.  I will say it has been my saving grace while shoveling that money into savings for Drew.  I haven’t felt deprived and I truly think God has taken care of us by the things we have found there.

One week I REALLY wanted a biscuit cutter.  The can trick just wasn’t working.  I brought it up on Amazon, and while it was only 10 bucks or something, it wasn’t in the budget so I left it alone.  The next week, it was sitting (literally, the same one I looked at the week before on Amazon) in a bag at Goodwill.   God looks out for us.  He truly does. 🙂

**I should add that the only debt we currently have is a mortgage. We do not have a car payment, and we do not carry a balance on our credit cards (we pay our credit card bills in full each month).  We didn’t have to take any student loans, and while I thought we’d have to take them for Drew’s schooling, we have somehow made it without.  If you have debt I am sure that will affect your budget in other ways.  We are funneling the money towards a tuition fund, instead of to a loan payment. Staying debt-free (besides a mortgage) is one of our financial goals.

Family Budget Worksheet

So, now that we’ve talked MY finances — it’s time to make your family budget template to help you take control of your finances.

This is the first in my budgeting series.  You can read more at my family finances page.

2018 Update:  My husband left his job and we sort of shifted how we budget — to more of an abundance budgeting, but these are still our rough numbers.  Some months are higher and some are lower, but by opening ourselves up to more — I found I had to nickle and dime us a bit less.

Another link you might like: Doing Disneyland on a Budget

*I am not putting these budget numbers out there to be “woe is me” or “woo-woo look at me!  We’re rich!” type feeling.  I really think if people were more transparent about their own expenses it might make people re-think what they are doing with theirs, and help them think about their long-terms goals.  I am sure we spend more and less then many readers on my blog.  I hope this is helpful to some of you.  I would LOVE to see other people’s.  There’s really no reason that our budgets have to be hush-hush.  I didn’t give you my social security numbers, or how much we actually make — this is just our goal to spend.

Family Budget Example FAQ’s

A lot of the ways we have done this is by getting into routines — be sure to check out my courses Family Routines — if you want to get your family into a new lifestyle