It's funny to look back at this thread. About 20 months later, I'm now officially a trader making significantly more money. Found a girl that has the same stance on marriage/kids and is definitely smarter than me. Hope for another great 20 months coming up.
Had some internships with majors, then a wholesale company brought me in as a scheduler. From there, I became a trader.
After doing my taxes I decided to do a little bit of housekeeping on my finances to see where my money was going. Updated: Retirement - 15% Savings - 10% Mortgage - 25% Utilities - 10% Transportation - 10% Discretionary - 30% Curious if anyone else's spending/saving habits have changed.
Take home pay? We're retired, our house is paid for, we have some substantial investments, one of us has an excellent defined benefit pension, including healthcare, our youngest is graduating from college Friday, which will be like getting a raise, and we have a 76 pound blonde female Labradoodle, who is an excellent burgler alarm. The cost of dog food is killing us! I wish I wasn't dealing with chronic pain, thanks to a fool who ran a red light and nearly killed me several years ago, but aside from that, life is good. My advice? Save and invest more than you think you can afford. You won't regret it.
Based on take home pay: 22% Mortgage 15% Food/Grocery (just had a baby, higher than usual with formula/diapers) 15% discretionary 12% transportation (includes car note to be paid off this year) 6% Utilities 2% retirement (not including 6% 401k contribution, will bump this up significantly after car is paid off) The remaining ~28% varies by month, lately has gone toward saving for home projects like new flooring, but also throwing chunks of money at the car loan. Once that is paid off retirement will go up closer to 7% of take home and we'll also start a college fund.
Deck, sorry to hear about the chronic pain. congrats on everything else, including the college graduation!!
