<prompt> Human: Reddit, I feel so dumb. My partner and I have been so used to always having good income, that weve become too used to it and can no longer save. Please, can you help me to get our household finances under control? Income: Partners income - 125k pre tax.Mine - currently about 300fortnight casual, so it varies. I have just finished uni and am looking for full time work. A full time, conservative estimate of what I could earn would be about 45kyear. Due to my industry, however, it is difficult to obtain permanent work and I will likely have to do tempcontract work for a few years.Centrelink - 120fortnight.Regular expenses:Mortgage - 2200month.Car repayments - 800month, 7 years left. this was not our most savvy purchase, I admit that, but it would cost us at this point to change cars.Phonesinternet - 250month locked in to contractsElectricity - 0 solar system covers our full billRegistration for vehicles - 2000year approx.Health insurance - 3500year unavoidable due to health problems in the family.School fees - 8000year again, unavoidable. We have a special needs child and need private school as the public system is unable to cater for him. We used to be in the public system, but the tutoring and therapy he needed came in at about the same as what were paying private school fees for 2 kids now. House contents insurance - 1500year We are in a natural disaster evacuation area prefer not to say where and this is the cheapest insurance we can get that will cover us.Gas - 150quarter approx.Budget for vehicle repairs - 2000year approx.Fuel - 200fortnight no public transport here.I fear weve managed to get ourselves in a little too deep. I know we need to cut back on miscellaneous spending and were trying to do so. I have begun meal planning and budgeting accordingly, but our grocery bill is still some 600fortnight. We both drink about 100week and I smoke about 150week - I know I need to stop smoking, but my partner will not entertain no drinking. He will, however, agree to cut down. We have a 2000 credit card limit, that I feel we are always robbing Peter to pay Paul on. Because I never have much money in my account, I use to to buy fuelgroceriesmisc and repay as much as I can each fortnight. Obviously, theres the miscellaneous expenses of life to be taken into account, too, though I think I covered all of the major ones. For those of you more money savvy than this household, how much would you recommend as a realistic savings amont per fortnightyear? Is an investment property do-able? Would you recommend it? Currently, we feel like we are paying an inordinate amount of taxyear and wed like to try to reduce it. We have about 20k equity newish loan in our current house. A rental property would probably cost us about 370k. Please, be gentle. Edit: forgot to add that all prices are in AUD.  <response>: It sounds like you guys have fallen into the trap of thinking big income means you can get everything you want.It means you get to choose which luxuries you want, not that you get to have all of them. A house that may be more than you need is fine. Driving nicer cars is fine. Smoking and drinking is financially fine though this will obviously affect health.All of them is not fine. Think about what is more important. Youre currently spending over 6k 13k a year on alcohol and cigarettes. Is that really adding to your quality of life to that degree. EDIT: I did bad math and somehow ended up with half the amount. This is a truly staggering number.Youre spending over 10k per year on cars that are financed.You seem to already get the picture for the mortgage.I would work on the phone thing, but honestly the alcohol and tobacco plus the cars is where you can save the most money in the short term.From here on out, you need an organized budget. Use an app or excel or something. But know what money is coming in and where you are spending it. Those little miscellaneous expenses can REALLY add up. I was personally spending hundreds per month on fancy coffees without really realizing it. You need to know where every dollar is going.Once you have that, determine how much you are willing to spend for something BEFORE you buy it. Let the amount you are comfortable spending dictate your choices and not the other way around. 