Budgeting is easy, its the subsequent following of said budget that makes it hard. Start with writing down all of your expenses per month. car, mortgage, rent, food, bills, etc.. You'll be estimating on some things but estimate high so you're under instead of over. Once you have a summary of your required expenses, add in an appropriate number for entertainment/misc costs for that month. One good suggestion is to budget in maxed 401k(or at least the until the point where employer match is.. its free money) and roth ira contributions for the year. Dont know what to invest in? put it into an s&p 500 index fund until you do. After all that expense, figure out how much you want to save out of whats left. Open an ingdirect account(2.10% interest) and pay yourself that much every time you get paid. Last suggestion is to review your finances periodically to see if you are kosher and keep a running tab of where you stand when you spend your money. One other suggestion.. if you have credit card debt, forget about any retirement savings and devote all extra money towards paying that off. Look at it this way, credit interest typically runs at 17-20% interest. Stock market traditionally returns 10%. So you would have to gain greater than 20% interest on an investment to break even and make positive if you have credit debt. Student loans are ok to hold onto for awhile as the interest is tax deductable and typically at low rates. At heart of it all is, try not to get caught up with the "joneses". live beneath your means but not necessarily cheap. find your own comfortable balance and stick with it.
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)
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