- il serpente cosmico
- May 15, 2003
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Best five bucks I've ever spend.
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That net monthly income seems high based on your salary and deductions. I'm assuming that you live in a state without income tax?
This calculator is pretty accurate, in my experience: http://www.adp.com/tools-and-resources/calculators-and-tools/payroll-calculators/salary-paycheck-calculator.aspx
Punching your numbers in to the calcualtor without any state income tax, 1 federal exemption, and assuming your deductions are tax exempt, I'm coming up with $2,685.59 for your monthly take-home.
Your rent seems really high--any way to reduce it?
il serpente cosmico fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Aug 23, 2015
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Aug 23, 2015 19:42
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May 13, 2024 17:07
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- il serpente cosmico
- May 15, 2003
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Best five bucks I've ever spend.
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What is your housing situation like? Would it be possible to get a roommate? I don't think you need to move ASAP, but if you can't get a roommate I'd definitely try to get somewhere cheaper when your lease is up.
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Aug 24, 2015 00:16
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- il serpente cosmico
- May 15, 2003
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Best five bucks I've ever spend.
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Hello everyone, it's been a year and two weeks since I started my first job out of college, and budgeting was vital for me for the first 6 months when I made the mistake of getting a 2br apartment for just myself with $1500/month rent. After I moved I got lazy with budgeting because it was easy to simply not overspend, but of course that meant I wasn't really saving much money either. Back when I was with Bank of America, they had this "keep the change" transfer to savings every so often that was based on the remainder to the next dollar on each transaction. That led me to round up whenever I entered my transaction, but sometimes also include the savings transfers, so it quickly became a mere approximation of my money, and it's hard to shake that feeling now even though I'm entering everything accurately. Oh well, as long as I err on the side of underestimating my assets it shouldn't be a problem.
So, here we go. Not the most organized budget, but it gets the job done. Yesterday was my first paycheck with a 401(k) contribution, $100 pre-tax and $50 Roth, and I'll be doing more once I've saved my liquid 3 months' income. Naturally my budget is a bit skewed what with the massive expense that is SCUBA training, but I usually have a large irregular expense every month or two that I make a category for, e.g. planning on a new phone soon. This was by far the biggest though, and I'm definitely planning on saving a larger portion of income next month onward. I'm mainly wondering if I spend too much on going out to eat.
Notes: Head is my budget word for weed and weed accessories, and Gay Ben is my video games budget. Impulse is my buffer zone for any sort of miscellaneous unplanned spending, or something that I get talked into on the spot, as well as things like little subscriptions that I didn't realize I hadn't canceled. I'm working on not letting that happen. "Spending money" is miscellaneous walking around money that I take out as cash, but I typically use it for weed anyway, or for stuff I would put under vacation, so I'm not sure if I really need it.
Why are your categories fluctuating so much month to month? You aren't budgeting as much as you're tracking your spending. What is covered in the $190 for fitness? A gym membership is $30. Also, giving cash it's own category is stupid. You should track cash withing your other categories. Why the blank place for car payment? Are you paying for insurance?
You could be saving a lot more. Also, what part of the country do you live in? Do you have an SO? Do you seriously not have a phone plan?
il serpente cosmico fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Oct 27, 2015
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Oct 27, 2015 05:55
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- il serpente cosmico
- May 15, 2003
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Best five bucks I've ever spend.
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Thanks for all the input.
I should say about my goals: what I want most of all is a shorter commute. All the rest is basically secondary. I've commuted over 30 miles for ten years. I want those hours back. I want to not have my private part of my day ruined because there was an extra 45 minutes of traffic randomly or because I had to stay late. The problem is that rent is goddamn crazy in MA. There is a big place just minutes from my work but it'd be 32% of my net income, and I've heard it's not supposed to be over 30% of your gross but it is still super tempting.
I've been posting on SA and talking to friends in an attempt to find discouragement because my inner coward wants me to rent but my inner romantic wants to buy (and my inner financier is telling to do it for various true and untrue reasons). I am under no financial illusions about renting like my loving boss trying to convince me that renting is 'throwing money away'  (Sure, I get it, a house is often better but renting is fine.) What is annoying is I can't get any renters to loving return my calls or emails. That's how I got into thoughts of buying; I got tired of getting ghosted by people who I was going to give thousands upon thousands of dollars to. I guess I'd just be trading landlords for realtors at that point.
This budget might just be the discouragement I was looking for. I am very probably not financially mature enough to buy a home.
When I started working again, I was going to be good. I was going to pack lunches... but being a student eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches every day for years just killed it for me. Still, I need to man the gently caress up and eat my baggie full of poverty and sadness. At least more frequently than never.
Yeah, like every day lunch is X or 1X bucks, but you take home XXX bucks every week, it's easy to not think of it. The percentage made it pretty clear.
My car is unusually low mileage (or it was until I started putting so many miles on it), but yeah, I should add that somewhere in case of an accident if nothing else.
I was wondering why it said there was only XX bucks due this month, because I payed an extra hundred instead of literally double. In your case, how did that work out for you as far as interest saved, if you know?
Nope, unless you count eyeglasses, but I just got new ones recently and don't intend to replace them for several years if I can avoid it. Still, they were 500 bucks so maybe a glasses fund should go into the budget.
Just because you're packing a lunch doesn't mean you need to eat lovely food. Make a big batch of something you like, and portion it out. I like to make a big batch of chili and then heat it up at work.
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Sep 23, 2017 02:34
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Aug 23, 2015 19:42
