Today, I thought it would be fun to share
the average American expenses versus the millionaire next door expenses.
So in today's video, we are going to cover a number of different expenses.
Of course, I'm not going to cover them all because that would be a super long video.
And then I'm going to share the average
expense that I have, being an everyday next door millionaire.
I am Tiffany Thomas with wealthytiffany.com and I achieved
financial freedom and became a millionaire.
If you're looking to do one or both
of those things, make sure you hit that like button and hit
the subscribe button and we're going to dive right in.
All right, let's dive into it.
I have all of the expenses listed out
and we are going to cover the average Americans expenses first.
So the first payment,
which is usually the largest expense that Americans have, is their house payment.
The average house payment that people are
making every single month is $1,500, which is a significant amount of our money.
The second expense that Americans have is credit card debt.
So I'm talking about debt that they have
on their credit card, not just using your credit card and paying
it off every single month, but this is a balance that they carry each
month and they are paying $173 on average for their credit card debt.
The next expense is student loans.
A lot of people have taken out student loans to attend college.
They are paying $393 every single month toward their student loan debt.
The next expense is a car payment.
A lot of Americans have a car payment
and their average car payment is $700, which is a lot higher than it used to be.
They've now extended it.
So you can do a six year or even a seven
year auto loan instead of the standard five year or even three year.
So people are paying a lot more for cars, and cars have gone up in value,
so they are a lot more expensive, making their average payment $700.
The next expense that Americans have is car insurance.
Of course you want to insure your car if you are going to have a car.
The average monthly car insurance payment is $148.
The next expense is your cell phone payment.
And this is pretty high.
So on average, people are paying $127 for their cell phone bill.
I'm going to talk about my own cellphone
bill in just a minute, which I recently lowered.
So you can really get a better deal than $127.
The next expense is utilities.
And this includes internet or any
streaming services like Netflix or Amazon Prime, things like that.
And it also includes your water bill,
your garbage, the storm drain, power and gas, all of those types of utilities.
And the average American spends each month
$400 for their utilities and internet and streaming services.
And the next expense that most people have is medical insurance.
And if you are lucky enough to have this covered by your work.
You should feel very grateful for that because on average for medical
insurance, people are spending about $456 just to insure themselves.
That is not including a family.
So this could be even a lot more if you have a spouse and children.
The next expense I want to talk about is a gym membership.
A lot of people have a gym membership and they don't actually use it,
but they are spending around $58 a month to have this gym membership.
The last expense I want to cover is food.
And this is including buying groceries and eating out.
So the average American will spend about $660 for food every single month.
And that again is just for one single person, one individual.
And as you can see, these expenses really add up.
The total amount that someone is spending
for their expenses every single month is $4,615.
And like I mentioned before,
I didn't include all of the expenses, so it is even higher than the $4,600.
So I want to go over what I spend in a month being the nextdoor millionaire.
And if you haven't read that book, I would highly recommend it.
I'll leave a link to it below in the description.
But it just talks about that.
A lot of people that might live next door to you, you wouldn't even know that they
are millionaires because they are not spending their money lavishly.
They aren't living luxurious lifestyles,
but they are still living really good lifestyles.
So let's jump back up to the top.
The House Payment so what is my house payment?
Well, it is $0.
I've paid off my mortgage, so I no longer have a house payment.
And yes, I do invest in real estate.
So I have a couple of rentals and I have
paid off one of those rentals and I do have one mortgage left.
But I'm just focusing on what my expenses
would be if I did not have real estate investments.
So I have completely gotten rid of the largest expense for most Americans.
And then the next expense is credit card debt.
And I do love using credit cards, but when I use credit cards,
I pay them off in full every single month, unless I do have a 0% interest rate.
Then I'll put a higher balance
on that and pay it off before that 0% interest rate ends.
So I'm not paying any interest on credit
cards, which means that is a zero dollar expense for me as well.
The next expense is student loans.
And I worked also while I went to college, so I paid for my schooling as I went.
So as you might guess, my student loan monthly payment is $0.
And then the next item is a car payment.
I did buy a new car a few years ago and I ended up paying that car off early.
So I do not have a car payment.
So I have $0 toward a car payment.
And I did do a video about why you should not pay off your car early necessarily.
So if you want to check that video out, I will leave a link for it above and below.
And then the next item is car insurance.
I do have a car, so I do pay $73.50 a month to insure that car.
And I have updated that since it is paid
off, I do not have full coverage on that anymore.
It is just liability.
So my car insurance rate has gone down since I changed it to just liability.
And then the next expense that most people have is their cell phone.
And yes, I do have a cell phone, but I actually just switched over
to Mint Mobile and I'm going to do a review about this once.
I've used them for a while,
but now my monthly phone bill is only $15 per month, which is super inexpensive.
But before I switched over to Mint Mobile, I was using Verizon, but I was on a family
plan with some of my friends and one of my friends family members actually.
So I was paying $40 a month,
which I felt like was a pretty good deal, but $15 is even better.
So if you are interested in signing up
for me mobile, I will leave a referral link below.
And the next expense is our utilities.
And again, this includes any streaming services or Internet.
And I do have Amazon Prime, which I might get rid of next year.
And I have Amazon Music.
Since I teach Zumba.
I need some access to music without ads and all of the different songs.
So I do have those two things, but I do not have Netflix or any other
type of monthly memberships for streaming services.
And then it also includes the garbage, water, gas, power, that type of thing.
So my total for utilities would actually be $250.
But since I have two roommates, there are three of us.
Well, actually one of them just left, so this expense will go up a little bit.
But since I am sharing this expense
with roommates, on average I have been paying $83.33. So not only do I collect
rental income from my roommates, but I also collect money for the utilities.
And if you are trying to keep your Internet bill as low as possible,
make sure and call your internet company every single time your rate is going to go
up, because they usually have some sort of promotion that they are doing.
That is what I have done.
Every single time my promotional rate has gone up, I call them before it goes up.
I put a note in my calendar so I know when
that month is and I call them and say, hey, what plans can you offer me?
And every single time they've been able
to give me a lower rate than I would have paid had I not have called.
And then that next expense, the medical insurance.
This one this year is actually $0 for me.
And that's because I have chosen not to have medical insurance this year.
I do realize it is a huge risk and I did
create a video about why I've chosen to do this.
So I will leave a link above and below.
You can check that video out later on.
But if I decide to go back to medical insurance, it would be around $300 for me.
The next expense is that gym membership.
And honestly, I love doing Zumba.
But the thing is,
I have found a free place to go to Zumba and then I also teach Zumba myself.
So my gym membership is $0.
There are so many different free ways
to get a good workout to exercise that I don't think it is really necessary
for people to have a gym membership, especially if you are not using it.
I know a lot of people sign up at the beginning of the year and they go
in January, and then they go a little less in February and then it kind of dies off.
So if you are not using your gym membership, just cancel it.
There are so many different ways to exercise.
There's lots of free videos on YouTube.
I actually like watching Sara Beth yoga and doing yoga occasionally.
Or you can always go walking outside.
I just went walking early in the morning the other day with a friend.
We walked around this really pretty area with lots of different trails.
And then the last expense that I want to bring up is food.
And this is groceries and eating out.
And I spend around $100 a month on groceries and that is just for me.
I'm not providing for a family or anyone else.
And I don't go out to eat that often,
or when I do, someone else is usually paying.
I prefer not to spend money on eating out.
And even when I had my birthday, just the other day, I invited people over
for dinner and I told them they could stop on their way and get something
from a restaurant or bring their own dinner from home if they wanted to.
I originally was going to invite everyone
to a restaurant and we could all eat there together.
But I thought, you know what,
some people may want to eat at home, or they might want to eat something else
that is a little less expensive and we won't have to pay for a tip.
So I decided to invite people over
to my place and they could bring whatever they wanted for dinner.
We can keep our food expenses really low if we are not eating out a lot.
And I'm not super extravagant in what I'm eating, but I still eat mostly healthy.
I like fruits and vegetables or chips and hummus.
I buy frozen fish from Costco a lot in a big bag.
And then I'll just have that for dinner.
So sometimes my food bill might be higher
one month if I'm kind of stocking up on things at costco,
but then it will be lower the next month because I already have food in my house.
And another thing I just did that also
helped to reduce expenses is plant a garden.
So I have tomatoes and other vegetables
growing in my garden, which I can eat instead of buying those
from the grocery store, and they taste a lot better as well.
So my total for my monthly expenses being
the millionaire next door is $271.83. You can see that is a drastic difference
from the $4,615 of the average American's expenses.
And like I said, this could go up by $300.
So it would be $571 if I decide to get insurance next year.
And it will go up a little bit more if I do not replace my other roommate.
But honestly, even if those expenses do go up, I am way under the average American.
And just to show you the yearly totals, so for the average American,
the yearly total is $55,380 that they are spending on these expenses,
and then my yearly total is $3,261.96. You can see the drastic difference
from the average American versus the millionaire next door.
And it just goes to show the way I've been
able to become a millionaire is by keeping a lot of my expenses really low
and of course, investing my money, which I talk a lot about on my channel.
So you can definitely look at any one of those videos.
But honestly, if we were able to keep our expenses as low as possible,
we are going to have way more money to invest so that we can become
a millionaire a lot sooner or at least become financially free.
Comment below and tell me which expense you are going to get rid of or reduce.
And if you're thinking I don't really even
know what my expenses are, I like using a free app.
It's called Personal Capital.
You can hook all of your financial accounts to Personal Capital so you can
see every single expense that comes through every single account in one place.
If that's something you're interested in, I will leave my referral link below.
You can click on that and set up a free account with Personal Capital.
Hopefully you found this video helpful,
and if you did, please hit that like button and share it
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Thanks so much for watching.
I'll see you in the next video.