Help calculating expenses and unemployment (Indiana)

[mpulse]

I could use some help figuring a realistic expense schedule.

It has been so long since I have actually been able to maintain a normal life that I am not sure what my expenses should be.

I live with my GF and have two children from a previous marriage in their late teens. I have to provide for them when they are with me (more than the normal co-parenting time), and my GF is unemployed but drawing unemployment at the present.

How do I calculate pet expenses (dogs and fish)?

Thanks for any input,
M

[SMinGA]

Start keeping track of what you spend in those areas, in all areas actually. Try to make good choices - consider what is necessary and reasonable. It is an adjustment, to spend money on things you need when for so long you cut out whatever you could. But better to adjust to that way of living before filing. (Once you file, there are no more do - overs, so learn to live within your means now.)

[mpulse]

That's kind of the point; For the last couple of years we have been living less than reasonably because I simply could not afford to live any other way.

My kids clothes have, for the most part, come from yard sales when I had the extra to buy them replacements. My oldest sons coat last year came from a donation.

I am unsure how to "guess" those types of costs because it has been so long since I actually incurred them I don't know where to begin.


Right now I could easily and conservatively budget a hundred dollars a month for clothing because we all need just about everything.

How do you budget for expenses that you are unsure of?