To those with full time jobs..

[tm37]

75% bills
20% food/gas
5% spider removal

 

[jjones]

About 40% to regular monthly bills including food (I have no mortgage or car payment), about 40% to savings/investments, about 20% to general misc. spending.

 

[randal]

15.7% rent
6% insurances
5.4% investments
4-5% utilities & cable
7% cell phone (yes, a lot)
21% debt payoff (currently in debt-reduction mode)
10% entertainment

That leaves me right about 30% fudge factor every month, which usually ends up going to pay off more debt.

 

[Evadman]

Takehome is after putting 15% into stock plan and 15% into 401k. Takehome is right around 60% of actual.

takehome:
25% car payment
20% food / drink (non-alchohol) including going out to dinner sometimes.
15% gasoline
15% medical insurance
10% car insurance

which leaves
15% disposable
    -5% out with the guys (drinks, food, etc)
    -10% whatever I want to buy as a gift to myself. Unspent gets spent next month, or saved 4 christmas.

My emergency money is my 401k. Why put it in a bank account when I can make high 20's in interest in my 401k, and can take an interest free loan on it whenever I want.

 

[kranky]

On a side note, I recommend always looking at your spending while including taxes, not just your take-home pay. You'll stay aware of just how high your taxes are. Politicians would love for people to just ignore how much they pay in taxes.

 

[5LiterMustang]

I'm still in school and working full time so my stuff would be a little off...here's my rule of thumb for when I graduate. Housing should be 1/4 or less of your take home pay. Save a minimum of 15% (I save more like 20 to 25% right now) hopefully you dont have credit cards bogging down your montly income. I have none, so I have a large amount of disposable income. You should never have more then 50% of your yearly income tied up in vehicles...what that means is if you make 50k a year, your total value of your cars should not exceed 25k.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: 5LiterMustang
I'm still in school and working full time so my stuff would be a little off...here's my rule of thumb for when I graduate. Housing should be 1/4 or less of your take home pay. Save a minimum of 15% (I save more like 20 to 25% right now) hopefully you dont have credit cards bogging down your montly income. I have none, so I have a large amount of disposable income. You should never have more then 50% of your yearly income tied up in vehicles...what that means is if you make 50k a year, your total value of your cars should not exceed 25k.

pretty good approach, but I tend to up the housing more. once you hit the high tax brackets you absolutely HAVE to have a nice home for the deductions alone. For instance I paid over 14K in interest this year - that's only the START of my deductions.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: kranky
On a side note, I recommend always looking at your spending while including taxes, not just your take-home pay. You'll stay aware of just how high your taxes are. Politicians would love for people to just ignore how much they pay in taxes.

Exactly! Franklin would be rolling in his grave if he knew my largest monthly expense was taxes.

From January 1 until April 9, every dollar I make goes to the government.

 

[5LiterMustang]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: 5LiterMustang
I'm still in school and working full time so my stuff would be a little off...here's my rule of thumb for when I graduate. Housing should be 1/4 or less of your take home pay. Save a minimum of 15% (I save more like 20 to 25% right now) hopefully you dont have credit cards bogging down your montly income. I have none, so I have a large amount of disposable income. You should never have more then 50% of your yearly income tied up in vehicles...what that means is if you make 50k a year, your total value of your cars should not exceed 25k.

pretty good approach, but I tend to up the housing more. once you hit the high tax brackets you absolutely HAVE to have a nice home for the deductions alone. For instance I paid over 14K in interest this year - that's only the START of my deductions.

That's backwards thinking...even at the highest tax bracket you'll only get 35cents back for every dollar you pay in interest. So you're still loosing 65 cents in interest. You could get a cheaper home, live more within your means avoid tens of thousands in interest for a slightly higher tax bill.

 

[dionx]

based on gross income...

22.77% Taxes
10.5% Church
6.0% 401K
1.75% Bonds
15.0% Stocks
4.47% Cash

anything left over pays off credit cards in full, then the rest to savings. savings can be as high as 25%

 

[5LiterMustang]

Originally posted by: dionx
based on gross income...

22.77% Taxes
10.5% Church
6.0% 401K
1.75% Bonds
15.0% Stocks
4.47% Cash

anything left over pays off credit cards in full, then the rest to savings. savings can be as high as 25%

You have no house payment?

 

[patrick409]

~30% taxes
~17% rent
~2% utilities
5% 401k

The rest goes to food, repaying debt, fun, and savings

 

[dionx]

Originally posted by: 5LiterMustang

Originally posted by: dionx
based on gross income...

22.77% Taxes
10.5% Church
6.0% 401K
1.75% Bonds
15.0% Stocks
4.47% Cash

anything left over pays off credit cards in full, then the rest to savings. savings can be as high as 25%

You have no house payment?

not yet. rent is currently free. by summer, i'll have mortgage payments and it can be as high as 40% and i'd have to adjust my income breakdown

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: 5LiterMustang

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: 5LiterMustang
I'm still in school and working full time so my stuff would be a little off...here's my rule of thumb for when I graduate. Housing should be 1/4 or less of your take home pay. Save a minimum of 15% (I save more like 20 to 25% right now) hopefully you dont have credit cards bogging down your montly income. I have none, so I have a large amount of disposable income. You should never have more then 50% of your yearly income tied up in vehicles...what that means is if you make 50k a year, your total value of your cars should not exceed 25k.

pretty good approach, but I tend to up the housing more. once you hit the high tax brackets you absolutely HAVE to have a nice home for the deductions alone. For instance I paid over 14K in interest this year - that's only the START of my deductions.

That's backwards thinking...even at the highest tax bracket you'll only get 35cents back for every dollar you pay in interest. So you're still loosing 65 cents in interest. You could get a cheaper home, live more within your means avoid tens of thousands in interest for a slightly higher tax bill.

nah, it enables me to have a bigger house which means more money when I sell it. And 6-7000 refund from the government sure doesn't hurt.

 

[iliopsoas]

50% rent
10% food/gas/utils
20% on spider traps
20% on lessons on how to mack on girls who call me to kill their spiders

 

[5LiterMustang]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: 5LiterMustang

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: 5LiterMustang
I'm still in school and working full time so my stuff would be a little off...here's my rule of thumb for when I graduate. Housing should be 1/4 or less of your take home pay. Save a minimum of 15% (I save more like 20 to 25% right now) hopefully you dont have credit cards bogging down your montly income. I have none, so I have a large amount of disposable income. You should never have more then 50% of your yearly income tied up in vehicles...what that means is if you make 50k a year, your total value of your cars should not exceed 25k.

pretty good approach, but I tend to up the housing more. once you hit the high tax brackets you absolutely HAVE to have a nice home for the deductions alone. For instance I paid over 14K in interest this year - that's only the START of my deductions.

That's backwards thinking...even at the highest tax bracket you'll only get 35cents back for every dollar you pay in interest. So you're still loosing 65 cents in interest. You could get a cheaper home, live more within your means avoid tens of thousands in interest for a slightly higher tax bill.

nah, it enables me to have a bigger house which means more money when I sell it. And 6-7000 refund from the government sure doesn't hurt.

Sorry man but it never makes financial sense to pay 15k in interest to get back 7k in a refund. Just doesn't make sense...and btw the most you can get back is whatever bracket you're in so assuming you're in the highest bracket at 35% you pay 14k in interest you'll get back 5k due to your mortgage...so you basically gave 9k to the bank so you could get money back from the feds. I realize that lots of banks and accountants and tax folks tell people to do this, but its simple math and knowing how the tax code works. It does not save you money. Now if thats how you wanna do it then go for it, but financially speaking you could save yourself some dollars by avoiding the interest all together, buying a smaller but still nice house that will also appreciate in value.

 

[spidey07]

But a more expensive house appreciates more. Its an investment for me, with the added tax goodies.

Its just a different approach. Sure ideally I wouldn't pay interest, but I don't have 300K laying around in cash. But being in my home for only 3 years it has appreciated some 50K. A smaller home would be proportionaly less.

 

[5LiterMustang]

Originally posted by: spidey07
But a more expensive house appreciates more. Its an investment for me, with the added tax goodies.

Its just a different approach. Sure ideally I wouldn't pay interest, but I don't have 300K laying around in cash.

It may appreciate more dollars wise, but not necessarily percentage, which si where many people get in trouble...you typically make more money in the stock market over the long term then in real estate appreciation which averages about 7% per year to the markets 11.8%. If you choose a good house injust about any area you can get great appreciation. For example, my mother after getting divorced bought a house, we were dirt poor the house only cost 19,000 dollars, this was about 12 years ago. We sold it three years later for 36,000 dollars. And that was in the ghetto, sure we put some work into it, probably about 5k worth, but you can still get great appreciation in a cheaper house. Say your house cost 250k, you'd get just as much appreciation out of a 150k house in a good area.

I'm off to work, I'll check this in about 9 hrs