<prompt> Human: Throwaway because I want to talk frankly about my budget.My wife and I are about to have our first child. Weve been DINKs for the past couple of years and both have jobs that pay fairly well. Weve never had a strict budget, because weve never had any problem meeting our savings goals, but weve been on Mint for years so we know where our money goes. Were currently working on planning out the next year and its amazing what having one child is doing to our finances.My wife wants to go part time to have an extra day with the kid andor get some things done around the house. We dont have any alternative than to pay for daycare when she is at work all our family works. Using our real and expected spending for the past year, here is a monthly breakdown:nbsp;Income per month6,950 after my wife goes down one dayweeknbsp;Expenses per monthI expect some of these categories to shrink over the next year as our spending habits adapt.Mortgage: 1,250 includes taxes and insuranceChild care: 1,200Food: 1,100 60 groceries, 35 restaurants, 7 fast food. Doesnt account for any costs associated with the babyIRA: 916.67mo this is the monthly amount needed to max out both our IRAs at 5,500 eachAutos: 810 1 car payment, insurance, gas, maintenance, saving for the eventual replacement to my carShopping: 650 some of these things probably belong in other categories like homeHome: 600 this number is a little high because we recently finished a kitchen remodel. Next year we will probably be closer to 450mo due normal maintenanceconsumables, as well as some things we need to in the next year like install a new fence and replace our fuse box with a breaker boxUtilities: 450 internet, phones, gas, electric, and waterOther: 250 entertainment, travel, glasses, pets, etcJrs college fund: 250 assuming 7 returns, this would get us to around 100k by the time college is hereHome equity loan: 120nbsp;Balance-650nbsp;We will do what we can to trim spending, but it seems so easy to also trim savings. Between our 401k contributions, our employers 401k contributions, and our IRAs up were saving about 20 of our pre-tax income for retirement. Do we really need to save that much? I doubt many of our peers are. Do we really need to save 250month for a college fund? Neither of our parents gave us much money for school. 100k wont cover tuition roomboard at many state schools today, let alone in 18 years.I cant imagine what having two kids would be like... Im not really sure what I expect out of this post, but just wanted to get this off my mind.  <response>: Not sure exactly what you want so I will just give some random thoughts:- Do not neglect retirement savings. You really want to keep that around 15 of your income. You say youre doing 20 which is great so you COULD back it off a bit. Your kid can borrow money for college but you cant really borrow for retirement.- Your food budget seems a little high. 700mo just on grocries for 2 people? 400mo on eating out? These could both be trimmed back IMO.- Not sure whats really in your shopping, home and other categories. At 1500mo that represents a pretty big chunk of your expenses.- Utilities: hard to know if this is reasonable since its somewhat dependent on region but it strikes me as high. 