Alright fellas, here's the deal. Just finished school recently and need to figure out what percentage of my money Im going to allocate to savings/retirement, housing, checking account, entertainment, etc... We've had a couple threads here about jobs and savings, so it had me thinking. So, what I want to know is, how do you all distribute your income(s)? My personality is one in which a high priority is placed on entertainment, traveling, going out, spending needlessly, etc... Therefore, what I have figured into my budget may seem stupid to most of you. Anyways, this is my breakdown and I would like to see how most of you spend your money. I think it'd be a good idea if I saw a number of opinions on the topic. So, I estimate my after-tax figure and subtract my school loans from that. From that remaining figure, I plan on spending: 15% on savings/retirement 5% on checking account 35% on housing 45% on entertainment/miscellaneous (yes, i know thats a broad topic, but I figure in food, gas, car payment, insurance, vacation, partying, rockets tickets, etc...) Thats my plan so far. Whats yours?
I distribute as follows: 50% savings 25% housing 20%: bills/necessities (electric, car note, satellite, cell phone, DSL, groceries, gas, etc.) 5%: entertainment (dinners out, bar tabs, movies, etc) Yeah - i'm not the most fun guy to hang out with.
This is all roughly based upon recent expenditure in each category. 33% Housing 20% Food/Groceries 10% Health Insurance 9% Gas 6% Car Insurance (no car payment anymore) 5% Cable/Internet 5% Entertainment 4% Electricity 8% Savings But I'm poor right now, so take that into consideration.
I expect around this normally: ~21.5% Rent ~5% Groceries ~7% Bills (electric, phone, TV, internet, etc.) ~1% Gas (I don't drive much) ~2.5% Car Insurance Right now, have some payments I'm making on some furniture, which is about 5%. Also have another ~20% set aside that is going to my parents to pay for school/car. The other ~35% gets split up between savings and random purchases...which has been usually a bunch of video games lately (Entertainment). That has been a bit higher than what I'd like, so it has been closer to 20%/15% for savings/entertainment, although I'd like it to be more like 25%-30% savings, especially since I'm just starting out (some of this will go to some school loans once I get my payments setup). I'm pretty cheap on entertainment, outside of games. Don't go out to eat, watch movies, etc.
30% rent 20% car pmt/insurance ~13% other bills (cable, internet, utilities, gas) 19% Food/Entertainment (basically all other expenses- haircut, groceries, going out, etc) 8% Student Loan Pmt 4% retirement As you can tell, pretty maxed out from month to month. I'm also only in my first year working full time with a full salary. I've got some savings built up as a cushion, so I've been able to maintain my balance for the most part. I only have about 5% leeway each month, which I would like to save, but the last couple of months other expenses have come up that all but eliminate that.
I don't know what all goes into housing; but I hope it's not just the rent/mortgage payment itself. I don't think most complexes would even lease to you if your income is less than four times rent; and even then I wouldn't advise it, especially when accounting for things like rent increases, adding gas fees mid-lease, and accidental duplicate ACH withdrawals. Hopefully furniture is part of that? I think renting furniture for about the first nine months or so on my own, even though I couldn't get enough credit to finance at the outset, is probably the second worst financial decision I ever made after payday loans.
I don't have my budget spreadsheet with pie chart on this computer, but I believe it goes something like this 33% Rent Expenses (Power, Water Included) 7% Other Bills (Car Insurance, Internet, Phone) 20% Food 15% Gas 25% Leisure Thats 100% of our "expense" budget, but it comes out to be about 62% of the current amount of money we are making combined. The rest of the money goes into a joint money market account.
