Eating Out - $75-100/week = 300-400/Month
Gaming (Arcades) - $15-20/week = 60-80/Month
Lunch (1/2 made and 1/2 bought) - $30-40/week = 120-160/Month
Cell (2 phones) = $70-75/Month
Rent (1bdr) = $350/Month
Gas = 1tank/week = $160-200/Month
Random Shit = $150/Month (Bday gifts etc)
Insurance = $150/Month
Smokes = $70/week = $280/Month
Salary = $2050 (after taxes/deductions/benefits/union crap)
$2050 - $1845 = $205 for saving/other stuff. That is estimating on the high end. Usually I take home $300-400

OP: you spend WAY too much on rent. half your paycheck? are you crazy? with your kind of salary you should be able to save more than $100 a month.

i wont say how much i make, but i'll give percentages.

i lose 20% a month to the following:
15% ESPP
5% (+4% matched) RSP

after that, w/ the remaining 80% (what i get after tax and the above deductions), i spend....
22% rent + utilities
10% insurance and gas
2.5% cell phone
15% food/drinks

leave me with 50% of my pay per month in theory.
what actually happens is i try to bank $500-600 of that and usually end up blowing the rest.. unexpected expenses ftl... gotta try to reduce those somehow.

Maybach Expense 800 000
Chauffer Expense 50 000
Land Tax 100 000
Escort Expense 1 000 000
Body Guards 250 000
Food Expense 100 000
misc 200 000
RIMS 20 000

I have a question for everyone, how much do you usually save a month after all your expenses and misc spending ? I'm able to constantly save atleast $800 a month.

if you can save $10k cash year over year, you are in good financial shape

cool I've been able to do that ever since I started working from $8 an h/r till now. I always thought that would be easy for everyone but my friend told me that he can barely save over $5000 and he makes double what I make but then again he parties alot and spend his money on stupid shit :D

its cuz he makes it rain in the clubs and YOu dont

you da man cool guy. not everyones situation is the same as yours.

true BUT then again, I live a "boring" life :D. Its fun for me but to others I am "boring"

I save about 70% of my pay check (after taxes)...

I'm a cheap ass and try to spend as little as possible.

I'd love to go buy stuff, but none of it I need. but I do need a house / apt so I keep saving.

I wear $18 jeans and $6 t-shirts to work. don't drink, rarely go out, car has been paid off. low rent. not much on food. free phone from work. $150 / gas.

Are you kidding me? I'm in my mid 20's and I'm probably the lowest income earning of my friends by a substantial amount. The only thing that saves me is I get paid a bonus every quarter but it is hard to figure out because sometimes it's high, other times it's $0.

Well, I never include any money I make off investments even though I guess for me it could be classified as my job as well since it occupies so much of my time.

My day trading income, rental income, investment income and the bonuses from work I never count because they are all 'extra' things that could end at any moment. My job for that matter could end any moment.

Living like a student while having a great career is awesome. I have hardly any stress :)

Words of advice:

you make 55k? Good. You can afford to rent at 1500? Great.
Then why don't you buy into a cheap condo or house or apartment?
You rent at 1500/per month for a year thats 18,000 of your money wasted...
Put it into property and think of it as a big piggy bank, live there for a year and cash out at 20,000 (plus your down payment) and move into something bigger and better...
Sure it takes effort to find the right places, and I'm not saying you need to move every year, just think, why waste 18,000 on a place for rent thats probably minimally better than the house/condo you could buy with a buddy, gf, family member...

You get your money back

You build credit

You have a place of your own

The only bad thing is that you have to pay your utils and property tax, so find a place where after your down, you pay roughly 1200 for mortgage...

Its very doable

As for me... I live at home :bigthumb:

Havent finished school yet

Ha that is easy for you to say. Some people make > 50K but they are still unable to put a downpayment. They may not have someone to split the mortgage with so that is why they rent. Some of my friends have been renting for years but they are finally able to save up for a downpayment for a place to own. Living in the lower mainland is as easy as 2 decades ago.

I also forgot to mention that some of us saved up enough for a downpayment early this year. However, because of how their investment went, some of us have to postpone in putting a downpayment for a home.

I feel like I'm on welfare making $600 a month compared to some of you ballas.

I hear you man. Here is a quick calculation/estimate I did.

assuming my budget for living is 1500. ok let's raise it, 1800 since i'm buying a home so i'll cut spending in some other areas.

take away the following:
property tax, say $100 a month
maintainance fee $250 a month
utility: $150 a month?

so $1300 left for mortage. say interest rate of 4.5% for a 25 year mortgage.

I can get a loan about $230,000

Let's just assume I have 50g for downpayment (all my salary from 20month of coop).

That means I have $280k to spent on a place.

a quick look on craigslist i found this.

http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/reb/981984351.html

probably a 600 sq feet tiny ass box but ok.

1 year after my mortgate payment of 1300 x 12 = 15600
1 year after my mortage outstanding balance is at $225,000

so out of the 15600, 10600 went to interest, and i've gained $5000.
total expense of buying (yearly):
(1800 x 12) - 5000 = 21600 - 5000 = $16600.

now infact the 5000 will be gone if I do decide to sell the house assuming housing price stay the same minus the realtor fees, and I have to pay on top of because realtor is charges something like 7% for first 10000g, then 2.5% after, so thats 12g right there. so realisticly yearly expenses of buying assuming selling in a year is

$28600.

compare to renting, let's say I pay $1500 a month, 12 month is 18000. let's say i put my 50g into investment and add 300 a month for the cost difference of renting, 50g at 3% interest rate will yeild = $1500 in interest. plus 300 amonth saving x 12 month = $3600 plus compound interest we will neglect for simplicity. so renting plus investment yield a gain of $5100.

so renting for a year i gained 5100 lost 18000 for a total expense of $12900.

thats $15700 a head of buying a home, now add that up for over a few more years, compound interest build up and interest yield even more money.

however, this comparason is assuming the property value is constant, and I've neglected many things for simplicity. so it's not nessesary going to apply for certain situation. but just food for thoughts.

feel free to add to my little comparison. it's midnight I've slept 3 hours yesterday I might've missed some important stuff. I shall head to bed now.

Man, all this talk of saving and eventually owning a home makes me feel like complete shit because I'm in debt and have a hard time paying it off. I hate you all.

Your looking very short term. When you buy a house you look forward to the long term positives and negatives.

Everyones situation is different. Its not about how much money you make, its about what you do with the money you have. I have tons of friends that make over 50g's a year and they are living paycheque to paycheque because they would rather spend their money on cars/parts, alcohol/weed, partying, clothes etc....instead of thinking about long term and putting money away for a house or land. Everyone's priorities are different :thumbsup:. The way I see it, I'm being smart now so when I get older I won't have to worry about working and I can chill. Don't you see the abundance of old people still working because they can't afford to retire ?

The best piece of advice anyone could ever get is to learn how to manage money long before how to make a lot of it. To add to this, a co-worker of mine (well someone who works in the same industry that I've worked with) in New York was making over a million a year just filed for bankruptcy.

How you might ask when you're getting by making $30 grand a year?

He has a huge condo in New York that costs him $5k a month in rent. You can bet it's not filled with IKEA furniture either. Eats out at all the trendy restaurants in Manhattan. Had an F430 Spyder that he's making payments on and an M6 daily driver that he is also making payments on or is leasing or whatever.

He owned a home in California, another in Boston that he rented out, and another home somewhere else I forget where.

The point is, once he lost his job a few months ago, he was fucked.

He couldn't make his car payments which are something crazy like $8 or $10k a month. He can't make his mortgage payments, the renter in Boston is paying half what the mortgage costs so no help there.

The guy is 100% fucked. He has been making over a million a year for the last 4 years. Does he have an income earning problem? No, he has a money management problem.

I work with people like this and see it happen a lot. This is why maybe some people ask why I drive a POS RSX or my shoes are from Winners but make a lot of money. People say I'm cheap.

Yeah, maybe I am cheap but I'm sure not going to be a baller today while running the risk of being a broke ass hobo tomorrow. Most people have a spending problem and this is why everyone is so obsessed with making more money. It's all backwards.

:werd: and the funny thing is that when people make more money they will eventually spend it faster. It doesnt click to many people that they can save more and get there faster if they just stick to their plan.

It's so hard to manage money! Unexpected shit always occurs for me.

^examples? certain unexpected things cannot be helped, others can

same, when i try to save money weird shit always happens. IE car accident break something like toilet etc but when i dont save money NOTHING happens. Coincidence? I THINK NOT

mo money mo problems ?