Food Spending by Family Size

Last year I wrote about Grocery Spending by Income Group.    Yeah you guessed it, rich people spend more.    Today we'll follow that one up with the sequel and look at how much families spend based on family size.

I got the data straight out of the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey .   Specifically the numbers below are from the tables for Size of consumer unit.


First family size and spending on monthly basis :

Pretty obviously, bigger families spend more.

But what about the amount spent per person? 

There the trend reverses and for larger families they spend less per person.    I assume this is due to a couple factors.   First I'm assuming that the larger the family the more smaller children and I'd assume smaller children consume less food (usually).     So a typical family of 4 with 2 little kids isn't going to eat as much per person as 2 adults would.   Second I'd also guess that larger families are better at economizing on their food spending due to necessity.   Its one thing to splurge on the steak if you're a single person but buying 5 steaks is going to hit your pocket book a lot harder.


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Affordable Electric Cars

Electric cars are starting to get affordable.

Photo credit mariordo59

A search on Edmunds shows 4 electric car models under $30,000.   However all 4 are in the sub compact class so they're small cars.   If you're looking at cars in that class then an electric might make sense.   The electric versions have limited driving range but its enough to meet the needs of most people for local city driving.

Here are the four cheapest electric cars and their base MSRP:

Mitsubishi i-MiEV = $22,995
Smart fortwo Electric = $25,000
Chevy Spark EV = $26,685
Nissan Leaf = $28,980

(note that some cars may not be available nationwide, I didn't check)

If you then also get the full $7,500 federal tax credit for EV's then that makes the cars fairly affordable.  You do have to have $7,500 in taxes paid for the year to get the full credit since the credit is non refundable.   But a lot of people don't pay that much in taxes to the IRS so they would not get the full $7,500 in credit.

	MSRP	w/credit
iMiEV	$22,995	$15,495
fortwo	$25,000	$17,500
Spark	$26,685	$19,185
Leaf	$28,980	$21,480

These prices are getting more affordable but they still aren't nearly as cheap as similarly equipped gas cars.    


The fortwo and Spark have gas equivalents so I can do a rough comparison of costs to buy and pay for fuel between the gas and electric models.

	Spark EV	Spark gas	fortwo EV	fortwo gas
Cost	$19,185	$12,858	$17,500	$13,270
12 payments	$4,140	$2,772	$3,780	$2,866
Fuel	$307	$1,200	$278	$1,167
annual	$4,447	$3,972	$4,058	$4,033

In both cases the annual cost is higher for the electric cars if we just look at making payments and fuel costs.     My estimates are based on driving 12,000 miles a year, paying 10¢ per kWh and $3.50 for gas.     I also figured just making payments and financing over 5 years on 3% loan.  Of course you could pay cash up front and then figure the opportunity cost.

Given that the electric cars should have higher resale value and lower maintenance costs I'd give the edge to the electric models in both cases.  If you happen to live in one of the states like Georgia or Colorado with Colorado with generous tax incentives then it can be a no brainer to get the electric.


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Best of Blogs for Week of April 25th

Every Friday afternoon I share some of the more interesting or notable posts that I have seen in the personal finance blogs and other sources for the past week

Retired by 40 shares : I Saved 80% Making Baby Food!

DQYDJ asks How Long Should Debt Be a Responsibility?

DoughRoller has DR 057: 9 Things to Know About the myRA
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The Marriage Tax Bonus

You've probably heard of the Marriage Tax Penalty.    Have you heard of the Marriage Tax Bonus?

Most married couples receive a Marriage Tax BONUS rather than a penalty.


My wife and I pay a lower tax bill then I would pay if I was single.   Since my wife doesn't work we get a lower tax rate and higher deduction and exemption.   This is generally the case for a married couple with only one income earner.   This gives us a Marriage Tax Bonus of several thousand dollars a year.

Lets look at a couple examples.

Say you make $50,000 and you're single.   Your basic tax bill would be $5,929.   If you get married and your spouse does not work then your taxes would be $3,608.   The Marriage Tax Bonus is the difference or $2,321.
  
If you make $100,000 then the single filer tax bill would be $18,493 and married would be $11,858.    Thats a Marriage Tax Bonus of $6,635.

 A single income couple is going to cause the largest Marriage Tax Bonus.   For married couples with two incomes there may be a bonus or there can be a penalty.  It depends on the income levels and resulting tax brackets before and after marriage.

The TaxPolicyCenter said :
"Before the 2001 tax act, married couples were already significantly more likely to get bonuses than penalties. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 51 percent of married couples received marriage bonuses totaling nearly $33 billion in 1996, and 42 percent incurred marriage penalties totaling almost $29 billion."

But note that is before the 2001 tax act.   The 2001 tax act changed things to remove the penalty for the lower tax brackets.   After that 2001 reform the % of people getting bonuses should be even higher.   So now the % of people getting a marriage bonus is above 51%.

To roughly figure if you have a Marriage Tax Bonus or a Marriage Tax Penalty you can use the calculator at the Tax Policy Center.

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