Quote (kalelvszod @ Apr 14 2015 03:41pm)
800$ month rent
150 for internet and phone bill
160 month for insurance
100 month for gas
300$ month for debts
300-400 month on food
then any other monies such as going out and having fun and that is living comfortably and can include debt because thats a real life thing for most people. food is that much because i like to eat good and not garbage food
Yea this isn't that far off the norm I don't think. $300 a month student loan debt is pretty typical too. No issue with this. Food is a bit high, but meh.
My girlfriend is a server and she brings in about $2400 a month on average, $2000 in deader seasons. Still could afford everything you listed above.
People here keep talking about buying a house being hard too. Mortgage and rent are almost equal in many, many, many areas. I know in some of the mediocre areas of the Maryland/DC suburbs you can buy a townhouse for $150k-200k. That mortgage with 3% down on an FHA loan would work out to be like $1200-1400 a month with full PITI. That isn't an impossibility if youre making $30k+ a year. You just have to have good enough credit to qualify for it. So go and get a secure credit card that a bank physically cannot turn you down for, and student loan debt that you don't go late on, and youll have plenty of credit to suffice for that. It'd be tight, and I don't recommend spending more than 40-50% (I know most say 30-35%) of your paychecks on your mortgage, but if you're in a spot where you'll most likely get raises and such, it's not terrible.
I think the point above about no entitlements for vacation, retirement, house or a nice car is pretty fair. Though a 401k isn't hard to contribute to. If you can put just $50 out of each paycheck into a 401k at a young age it adds up very quickly. I go to the beach every summer and never spend more than $500 on that because i'm good with a motel.
Anyways, just more food for thought...
Quote (Worrywart @ Apr 14 2015 04:01pm)
Good thread aspergersniper
If only we were all as motivated as you we could all live frugally (spending thousands of dollars on a children's video game)
Lol, I pride myself on never paying a dime for anything d2 or d2jsp related, aside from the $19.99 I paid for diablo 2 itself lol.
This post was edited by AspenSniper on Apr 14 2015 03:05pm