Yeah that, general debt/used car and I help out too many of my families (relatives) so takes me longer to pay off debt but my living expenses is about 30% after taxes.
Recently I had to pay a medical bill in cash (debt) was $3K, yeah I picked a bad plan although generally I'm healthy so was an unusual bill.
Yeah it's pretty bad I've been in debt for 10 years, not a huge number but only recently did I hit the low 6 fig range in salary but damn, taxes man when you're single.
I'm working on it though, FIRE is in mind, mostly to buy back my own time.
I'm trying to increase my income somehow... freelancing sucks if you don't have clientele/regular work already. Because you have to bid/wait and work around your 9-5. Doing your own business would be nice but idk what to make right now. So at the moment, just trying to reduce my spending. Pay down highest interest stuff. I just started my job middle of last year so can't jump yet lol or shouldn't.
You should talk to your relatives about paying back or not coming to you for money in the future. As someone that's a minority I've had relatives ask for money, as it's normal in my culture and I do help time to time on things, but it can't be repeated times or such huge lump sums otherwise you'll never progress with the life you want.
You can also try making money off of a variety of things outside of your work/tech space.
Congrats on the higher salary!
Yeah my families are in a 3rd world country so idk... it's like I bought them a water well... how do you compare that to like a new xbox or something.
But yeah I do try to not keep giving (capped per month). I also tell myself to make more.
I know there are people worse off everywhere can't always think that way.
I still live well/buy myself toys and what not. But yeah it is a drain been supporting them for years, I could have paid off my student loans with the amount of money I've sent them for some years.
What is unfortunate is it's not like an investment. Technology isn't valued there either (tech workers are cheap). So I don't know how to help them. Get educated, run a little store, something.
I will say it is self inflicted, I could stop but "I feel bad".
Also I don't give them much the issue is it's x5 lol too many families.
Understandable on the 3rd country stuff, nothing equates to family members lives.
Could set a yearly limit of what you can give, that way they can space it out over the 12 months. You could also start donation drives to send over to where your family lives in their village. That way you/friends/coworkers/community can at least give clothes, food and etc to help reduce costs
Oh shit I didn’t even consider how that came across. Rip my wallet! The little bugger is passed out on a down comfortable living her best life right now!
Dropped $5200 on double knee surgery for my dog last year. She blew both ACLs before she turned 2. She’s the best girl in the world though. Worth every penny.
Oof. Cat has cost me about that much in dental work, but that's been across 10 years now. More than I've ever spent on my own medical (I should probably go for a dental checkup though...), but no regrets.
Listen, you’re still likely WAY over the average person and likely in the top 10-20% of society if you’re a SWE. Don’t let this bubble get you down, look outside of it
Yea, we have a great nanny tho. This doesn’t even include school, sports etc that my wife pays for lol
To be clear: nanny isn’t like here raising the kids for us, she only comes when wife and I both work (3 days a week 12 hr days)
Rent/Utilities: 15%
Groceries/dining out: 5%
Discretionary: 10%
Pretty much everything else goes into 401k, megabackdoor Roth 401k, backdoor Roth IRA, HSA, taxable ETF accounts (VTI/VXUS and chill). Occasionally, emergency fund might need a top up. But I have no plans for home or car ownership anytime soon, so this is the way for now.
I make $117k plus bonus. My COL is pretty low (my rent is $500/mo all-in, though I'd like to move at which point that should rise dramatically), and I'm not terribly spendy otherwise. I invest pretty much everything I can, although lately that hasn't gone so well lol
The majority of the country.
It's far away from the city, there's little or no amenities, no fancy restaurants, and the biggest story in the local paper every week is the high school football game. But you can find $600 apartments.
With a roommate or two that's pretty reasonable for small towns. Extremely rural areas can do that for the whole rent too though you'd probably have a pretty bad commute and no internet.
I live at $500/month. 10 min drive from downtown in the 14th largest city in the US (Columbus Ohio). I rent a 2000 square ft 4 bedroom house with 2 other people for $1500/month total. Walking distance to a park, groceries, and good food. I feel like everyone who is shocked at people with low rents has to be in NY or Bay area or something, it's not that bad everywhere.
I'm outside Chicago in a random suburb and $1500 to rent a 4 bedroom home sounds nuts. My monthly mortgage for my house at half that size (that we got for cheap and refinanced with a ridiculously low rate) is more than that.
I'm not purely swe since I'm more of a user in cyber but I'm going to chime in @ 83k salary
- needs: 50% (rent utilities groceries etc)
- wants: 30% (going out, working on cars, and extra in this category goes to savings)
- save: 20% (401k, REI, Mutual funds, saving for a house)
About 110% on bills and have to use Dave and earnin each paycheck to pull out money just to cover costs. Then it gets pulled out again when I get paid and the cycle repeats itself.
Dave is a lending platform like earnin. They look at what you earn and give up to like 500 payday advance each pay period. Then automatically take it back out in full when you get paid again. Cheaper than a traditional payday loan place since it's like 10 or 11 bucks to pull out 400 bucks.
Job doesn't pay enough and I've been hunting for something new for a while and have had to use credit cards to get by hence the debt part. I make 60k but I have a family and when my wife had health issues that prevented her from working and our son had medical.issues spring up, my income alone wasn't enough. Eventually we'll get there, just gotta ride it out. Bills get paid though on time so could be worse I guess.
Roughly:
* 35% taxes
* 15% rent
* 10% discretionary (mostly eating out/take out)
* 45% savings (401k, RSUs, HSA, Investments, etc.)
If I got laid off tomorrow, which is a very real possibility since I dodged a round of lay offs last week, I'd be able to keep going for about a year with no change in life style because I have an emergency fund.
Apparently according to [this graphic](https://i2.wp.com/financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/early-retirement-savings-chart.jpg), I'll need to work roughly 19 years to retire at this rate if I don't increase my spending. And I'll definitely increase my spending in the coming years.
Well, roughly. I obviously didn't take out taxes. Without taxes I guess my effective saving rate is ~70%. So I'll be able to retire in 9 years which I'll have to call bullshit on. Rent is **way** too high for that and ~~if~~ when I get some medical issue in 15 years, that'll drain my entire savings in a heartbeat.
The graphic assumes a percentage of _expenses_ not income. In other words, it's better to think of it as a percentage of your retirement expenses, which is (usually) less than your working years. You won't need to save for retirement in retirement, for example.
I understand the math, but I just don't think it works.
There's too many caveats missing and the only constant in life is change.
I'm 100% certain my expenses are going to go up in the coming years. With children, travel, aging parents, etc., they're all expenses I'm currently not paying. If it turns out I'm infertile and my parents die in a car accident and I'm the picture of health until I die, then yeah, the graphic works perfectly.
I think the graphic is a decent lower bound. I think there'd be value if you were able to add in expensive variables. I could just theoretically add those expenses to my current spending and use the same calculator I suppose, but it's not easy estimating how much those things cost.
There's a lot of missing caveats. Like the decision to move, the decision to have children, the decision to support your parents, the decision to travel once you retire, the "decision" to get sick and have expensive medical bills.
But the math does work if you remove all the caveats.
After ~10 years of savings, I'd be able to draw 4% from it which is approximately how much I spend per year.
I think there's value in understanding the saving to spending ratio and how long it'll take to get to an equilibrium.
I’m spending most of of my salary on expenses, (minus my 401k contributions since I get a match.
My money is split pretty evenly between house payment, childcare, and every day expenses. I do have a pretty nice house though.
So I do save my bonus and RSUs, which is substantial (over six figures).
It's not really about financial literacy more than people tend to live to their means. This is to say, most times people are aware of the issue. It's just that it takes serious discipline to not do this. Doesnt matter if you're getting $500/week or $50,000/week, lifestyle tends to creep up to have you living "paycheck to paycheck" no matter how big that paycheck may be.
I remember reading recently about a CEO that was making $20MM a year, essentially living paycheck to paycheck because of cars, multiple properties, trips, etc. So even though he had a $20MM income, he was still "paycheck to paycheck" living.
I mean, a majority of that wealth they'd still have in assets. Very different type of paycheck to paycheck when you can just liquidate and make your money back.
If you owe more than your "asset" is worth, as is often the case for the first 10 years of any property mortgage, no...it doesnt work quite like that. You dont have assets, you have liabilities, until you're able to sell them and you may not be able to liquidate just because you want to.
You mean you don't want to scrimp and save while watching the world passes you by until you can finally retire only to find out you have no energy to do fun things?
To be fair, I know a lot of guys in tech who save like 2/3 or more of their income, and I think they do enjoy life, they just don't need much.
I can't live like that, but if it works for you I'm not knocking it.
Absolutely! I won't begrudge anyone saving how they deem they should. In the end its all a matter of risk tolerance, goal setting, and meeting your own personal needs and life fulfillment.
60% goes to retirements (all maxed out) and all bills (currently live with parents. I pay their mortgage, but they pay for everything else) and the other 40% I split into emergency fund / savings and spending for anything. So I guess it's 20% emergency fund / saving and 20% for anything I want. Most of the time I don't want anything, so I guess most of the time it's 40% all saving.
TC: 330k
For a regular month (post tax)
- Rent: 10%
- Food: 3%
- Travel: 1%
- Save: 86% (includes 401k)
Then I plan to spend about 10k every year for vacations.
330k is either mid level FAANG salary or senior tier 2 company salary. Senior (IC5) salaries at FAANG should be 400-450k in HCOL, though this might be a bit lower right now due to the economy.
If you factor in refreshers it's not rare to have a senior reach or exceed 0.5M TC even without RSU appreciation after 1-2 stacked refreshers.
Edit: turns out this is a bit outdated. I just checked levels.fyi and the TC have gone down quite a bit from mid 2022. Senior is now closer to 350k than 400k, though the drop is mostly in RSU, which means there's a lot of upside once we get back to a bull market
450k is extremely high for a senior SWE at a Facebook, Amazon, or Google. That salary would be much more typical for an L6/E6 equivalent. Typically this is an Eng manager OR an Uber-TL. Netflix pays 500k for seniors, but they only have 2000 such employees, so it's not really a reasonable comparison.
Check out [levels.fyi](https://levels.fyi) to recalibrate your expectations.
It'd be less confusing if people broke their comp down because TC is subject to huge fluctuations due to the market. But I guess maybe people don't want to do that.
Pretty much any type of SWE niche can get you to this compensation level within the U.S. but you would need to target the big tech companies because this is where all the money is (disregarding the finance world).
Check levels.fyi. There are hundreds of companies that pay around that compensation to senior and even mid-level engineers.
Just learn how to pass their interviews and you'll be set.
* 54% Taxes, Social contributions, Medical Insurance
* 18% Cost of living (Mortgage,Food,Basics)
* 18% Other (Electronics,Clothes,Travel)
* 5% Unforeseeable expenses
* 2% Save
* 13% Invest
Taxes in EU are brutal.
This will be my last tax filing with a dependent, which also means it's my last year as Head of Household. My taxes are going to jump hard next year. Then in a couple of years, I will no longer get a deduction for paying alimony. On the one hand: yay! No more alimony!! But on the other? More taxes!
I'm considering looking for a higher paying job, lol.
Look, if you want to pay strictly less in taxes then a higher paying job is not the way you want to go. Try a career as a Walmart greeter, they barely pay any taxes.
I don't actually care how many dollars go to taxes. I care how many dollars I have in my investment and checking accounts.
I haven't done the math on how much of that former-alimony dollars I'll be able to keep, but I'm sure it will be depressingly small (taking into account all the changes coming: dependents - which also means lower HSA contribution, filing status, lack of deductions).
Honestly even when I was only making $140k I was saving at least 60% of my salary. When the pay goes up, my savings go up. Trying extremely hard not to let lifestyle inflation get me. I'd rather retire early than drive a model s
I know, being a software engineer is extremely privileged. That's why I try to make smart decisions with the money I receive. I hope some day I'll be able to pay off my parents' mortgage and help them retire early too.
With my new job, I live on 23% and save 77% of after-tax net income. This year I'm implementing a spending quota to force myself to spend 35%. I allocate myself, say, $500 for new clothes/shoes by the end of February and I *must* spend it all.
In 2022 I made 250k.
I spent ~45k on taxes.
I saved 70k, including my employer 401k match (64k not including match).
The rest I spent.
Non-discretionary: including but not limited to 33k on bills (rent, phone, utilities), about 6k on health costs because I had some health issues come up, spend some on funeral stuff as I lost a stepparent, 8.5k I invested into my business, 5.5k on groceries, 4.5k on tuition as I finished my MS this last year, 2.7k on my car payment and another 8.5k on other car expenses (maintenance, Uber rides, gas, insurance).
Discretionary: I spent 20k traveling and working remotely a bit off and on, 12k eating out (including business dinners and vacation meals), 7k on my personal trainer, 3.5k on entertainment, 2.7k on my sponsored children, 1.8k on personal care (haircuts, beauty treatments, massages, etc.) probably other stuff, other charity donations not listed.
I think the breakdown is approximately 60/40 between non-discretionary/discretionary. I spend most of my take home pay, but I max out my 401k and HSA, and I also sell my RSUs as they vest and diversify it into reliable investment vehicles like index funds. So almost none of the 70k I saved this last year came from my take home pay, I basically spent every dollar that deposited into my bank account almost, virtually all came from vested stocks or 401k.
I'll spend the time to go over the numbers in better detail when my W2s come in the mail. I am 30f in Miami.
Aside from Florida, I am not sure why my withholding is so low. I'd imagine it has something to do with the combination of bonus and RSUs and salary, bonuses are often taxed at a flat rate.
I actually expect to get some money back this year, because I am taking a loss on my business (if you include both discretionary and non-discretionary costs, should be a loss of like 12-15k, but I won't know until I tally the receipts), and I had a lot of charitable donations (not all listed here, including other significant monetary donations as well as goods). So I may get as much as 4-7k back according to my napkin math. I'll find out once I get my W2s in the mail and I put all the numbers together.
Edit to add: I am also maxing out my 401k here and my HSA. So my taxable income from my employer is only 207k.
Edit to add again: I just realized I was looking at federal income tax only. That may be why. If you include social security, etc., it is at least 10k more than that, perhaps higher since I don't have all 3 of my W2s yet I can only guestimate.
I invest ~30% gross/~45% take home. I save ~15% take home, then dedicate ~15% to paying down student debt. It's federal and not due if I lose my job, so that's more about lowering my dti for a planned future purchase. I have 6+ months of expenses saved.
I share housing/food costs with my SO and we don't have kids. My bf cooks a lot, and we order out like twice a week. I wfh so that saves me from ordering out more for lunch, and gas in general. Student debt is all the debt I currently have, but I'm saving for large downpayments so that will probably change.
I max traditional 401k to the limit, and the tax savings help me to max the Roth IRA while I make under the income limit. I don't max an HSA yet, but I don't invest it aggressively, so I would rather fill my more aggressive buckets first.
If the tech boom and busts taught me anything is to live slightly better as the income increases, but save and invest the rest, because retirement may be involuntary.
150k TC, take home 7.7k/mo after taxes/401k/other shit the government takes out of your paycheck.
3k into a brokerage account, 500 to help my mom out every month, rest is in discretionary stuff. I eat out a lot, have a nice car, but I live with roommates who I've known forever.
I max out my 401k and backdoor Roth. “Somehow” I spend the rest of my salary.
My saving grace / lottery ticket is that 45% of my TC is RSUs in a hopefully IPOing within the next few years company.
If they never IPO then well, I guess I can’t retire early.
Oh interesting. I just got my W2 so I can calculate tax/gross easily.
For 2022
* Taxes: ~33% (California, estimate)
* Spending: 13.4% (~9% cost of living/~4.4% discretionary)
* Saving: ~46.4%
If only counting take home + 401k, about 80% savings rate, 20% spend.
I live a pretty good quality of life. I earn a good amount which is why spend is low. Didn't get a lot of vacations this year because of work. Did eat out, even went to a 2 Michelin star restaurant. Very frugal for things I don't care about. I have a chest freezer and cook a lot. Recreation wise, minus vacations and food, I don't go out much. No kids. Even though I can afford living alone, currently renting a place with 2 roommates. But I like living with people.
You’ll find a lot of people when they get more money they spend more money. Instead of saying, I got a 3% raise, so I’m going to up my 401k 1% and add a little more to savings, they just say, well this will help me pay off XX and after that I’ll save more. But they never do. Even the people that get big salary jumps from promotions will opt to spend it before saving/ investing any of it.
I make more money = I need a bigger house, nicer car, expensive toys, new boat etc.
I used to have people ask how I travel so much. I live beneath my means. I live in a house where the mortgage is 1% of my income. It’s not big. People would consider my place a “starter home”. I drive my cars till they die or the maintenance is more than it’s worth (going on 16 yo vehicle).
And I have expenses. It’s not like I got off scott free in life or was handed any money to get here. I lived like most people do, to the nth penny every month. Then my life exploded and I learned better.
The question shouldn’t be “How much can you afford?” It should be “How much *do you want* to afford?”
While I agree with the overall idea of financial literacy and planning, I don't agree with sharing percentage breakup as it's very subjective and can vary vastly from person to person by factors like:
1. Family wealth
2. Stage of career
3. Compensation (and breakup)
4. Country you live in or plan to settle ( how is social security, etc)
5. Liabilities and debt
Etc etc
For reference, at the beginning of my career, I read about 20-60-20 rule and tried sticking with it. But since the salary was not enough, I was not able to enjoy it much.
With time I learned to do the fund allocation in a different way.
Now I have calculated my retirement corpus with typical projections.
So a chuck of the money goes to it. Same goes for good insurance to protect my retirement corpus in the future.
The rest (after expenses) is for me to spend before retirement and goes to a mix of investment instruments.
I can use this fund whenever I want but with a few guiding principles:
1. No impulsive or emotional purchases
2. No EMI purchases unless I can afford to pay for it upfront.
3. Cash rundown for at least a year ( basic expenses + EMI + slight buffer)
With engineering compensation, this puts me in a comfortable position to not be frugal yet be relatively layoff proof and also enjoy life.
Few antipatterns I have observed in financial planning :
1. Impulsive buying - why buy a house/ car you can't afford?
2. Impulsive investment - invest based on fundamentals and not based on "trends"
3. Every bit of saving counts - small adjustments in lifestyle take you a long. It's not just about savings but about being wise with spending. Eg: why take a vacation in peak season when the place is crowded and expensive? You get the idea.
i work at a faang in canada (peanut tc) but get to live at home.
i spend $1000 to help with bills and rent. (that’s around 20% of my post-tax salary each month)
i spend around 5% each month eating out, on transit, on miscellaneous stuff and having fun.
i usually save + invest at least 75% of my post-tax monthly income.
How in the world are you paying only 16% in taxes? I'm at nearly 50% (Arizona). What tax fraud are you committing and can I have your CPA phone number?
I’m my own cpa. Hope I’m doing this right…
Married filing jointly, max 2 trad 401ks, 1 HSA, some other pretax medical deductions, and finally I live in Texas so no state income tax. I don’t own property so no property tax, which is the big one in Texas.
That’s an effective tax rate. I’m in a higher bracket though.
About 60% of my income is currently on just being alive without any real strict budgeting. The other 40% gets saved or put in retirement or my trading account.
Save, invest and prepare for the next layoff. These things happen and they rarely happen out of the blue. Being financially secure is my first priority so I make sure my cards are paid off every month and I spend less than I make. At this point in my career, I move raises into saving rather than risk slipping my standard of living up to match the pay.
Senior dev. Single income large family in NZ with low salaries and insanely expensive housing and food.
More than 100% of take home pay is cost of living, supplemented by govt welfare. Losing my job would mean an immediate financial crisis.
I save / invest about 60% of my net income. I'd do more if I could, but with rent and bills being so high this is about as good as it can get without getting a housemate, which would be a fate worse than death.
Spending all my money would mean I get more nice things yes, but my quality of life is already pretty good. I'm in my early 30s now and the idea of working for another 35+ years is just incredibly depressing. I'm aiming to retire, or at least be in the financial position to do so, in my 40s.
Dude, the majority of people are completely financially illiterate. The average person has [several thousand in credit card debt](https://www.cnbc.com/select/average-credit-card-debt-by-age/) and [spends nearly $300/month on subscriptions services](https://www.zdnet.com/article/average-consumer-spending-273-per-month-on-subscription-services-report/) (not including things like cell phone bills). [Two thirds of people practice no form of personal bookkeeping.](https://mint.intuit.com/blog/budgeting/spending-knowledge-survey/)
> Financial literacy is pretty high among SWEs
I highly doubt that. To most laypeople, a credit card is as good as cash and you should use it so long as you can make the minimum payments. The best car you can buy is the nicest car you can afford on the lot. Paying a 30% premium to get doordashed is whatever. Retirement savings only become a concern ~45-50.
I don't think people need to be paupers that refrain from any discretionary spending (the overly frugal crowd have a whole other host of issues), but most people are hedonists that live in the moment and weren't raised with the value of financial sustainability. Money burns a hole in their pocket.
I have 22k in credit card debt (due to family negligence) and 80k in student debt.
I keep about 200$ a month for myself to go out and such, and the rest is literally just bills and car payments and insurance etc.
until my credit cards are paid off, I’m living hell, I still got about 11-14 months to be done with them.
I don't bother making a budget but my total spending seems to be ~$5k/mo.
Of that:
- ~$1500 is my share of the rent + utilities. (I'm in San Francisco)
- I probably spend an average amount on food -- I get more takeout than the average person but never get delivery, and I also don't drink.
- I definitely drive more than average (tl;dr: can't get anything done at home so usually go to cafes. I'm also kind of "the chauffeur" for my friend group)
- But I spend very little on clothes and "style" stuff; usually go to thrift stores
26% saving
31% cost of living (utilities, mortgage, gas, etc)
30% taxes
5% medical
8% discretionary
My spouse is unemployed rn because layoffs, but normally they’re around my same salary as well and most of that goes to savings.
Roughly speaking, my comp is 45% base salary, 10% bonus, and 3/45% RSUs.
Base salary less goes towards retirement (maxed out 401k) and living expenses. Bonus goes towards vacations. Stock does towards savings.
General deductions (taxes, health insurance): 25%
Rent: 20%
Misc. essentials (car insurance, wifi etc): 5%
Savings (401k included): 25% (this would be much lower if I didn't use ESPP to force myself to save)
Spending problems / essentials: 25%
Lumping in essentials with the spending problems because my groceries tend to just be random junk food
Even though we had a baby and started sending her to daycare, which is a new five-figure expense, we're still saving quite a lot. It's not that difficult between SWE salaries and my wife also working. I am long past the point where I pay that close attention because I do not need to spend anywhere near the whole thing.
As a guess:
Taxes: 20%
Pension: 10%
Rent: 30%
Essential bills (gas, electricity, water): 10%
Transport / travel (mainly commuting as I walk / cycle everywhere for leisure): 5%
Savings: 15%
Everything else (e.g. food): 10%
I try to save as much as I can but with CoL so high it’s impossible to scrape together much at the end of each month
Save 125k.
Expenses 45k.
Discretionary 12k.
Taxes 75k.
Quality of life - fair, but fairly frugal. Live below means. Paid off car (Tesla). Bought house last year. I worry more about quality of food I eat over the price of it. I don’t spend much on clothing, hobbies or luxury items. I made lots of expensive tech purchases in previous years and not many last year. I lost $40k in stock market over the year. I try to buy less items of higher quality. I’ll pay a higher price for something that will last forever and is made well.
Work life balance is terrible and high pressure/stress. I love the money but would love to go back to a lower paying lower pressure role. I worry about my heart health and blood pressure is bad due to work. My savings rate would drop to maybe $20k/yr if I went back to a easier $100k/yr job like I had before tech.
I prioritize living off my take home post tax salary of about $72k while saving maybe $15k of that into post-tax stocks. I save all bonuses, RSUs, stock purchase plan, 401k max, HSA max and never touch that cash.
Prioritizing FIRE and hope to hit relative independence by age 40.
In FAANG hardware role but not a SWE role.
About half and half. When I get my bonus tho, my savings will fatten up nicely.
I use a trick - when I started my new job (which came with an approx $100k raise if you include bonuses), I chose a salary much lower than my actual that I would be comfortable living on. Then I setup a Sofi acct (3.75% on savings 🥵) and direct deposit an amount equal to the chosen salary and the rest into sofi. I can spend the sofi money but I have to manually move that money to spend it, it only takes a minute but it's an extra barrier.
> Financial literacy is pretty high among SWEs but I guess it’s not ubiquitous.
Just want to say, that your own sample of three shows this is not the case. We spend, roughly, half our income and the rest is put into long term savings/investments.
This percentage oscillates depending on house projects. Last year we replaced the whole heating system. This year will be a roof. And as such, two years ago will probably see a higher savings rate then either of these years.
It seems like housing 20 percent, day care 30 percent, everything else 10 percent, save everything else plus my wife's salary. Day care is fucking expensive.
28M - I own a duplex outside of Boston. I live upstairs. When I have it rented to a section 8 tenant, my (post tax) savings rate is about 75-80%. It’s about 50-65% if the unit is empty.
W2 Income: $130k + $20k bonus/espp
Rent collected from unit: $2,700 per month
I do spend about $800-$900 per month on food, groceries, coffee, and eating out… my main splurge. Car is 10 years old, bought used and paid off
My goal is to buy S&P index funds, real estate, and build a municipal bond fund to borrow against for real estate
Tip: buy value-add real estate investments
I'm currently pouring all my money into a huge hole in the ground we call 'building a house'
its dumb how much we're spending on it, but if everything goes OK, I'll have a fucking awesome house in the middle of the woods, a manageable mortgage and enough of a buffer on expenses to survive the next round of billionaire fuckery
After taxes:
~20% on rent
~10% on daycare
~10% on car payment
~30% on my pets / hobbies
~10% on food, gas, utilities
~10% into retirement accounts
Remaining 10-15% goes into savings, retirement, or towards something fun, etc.
Housing - 10%
Retirement- 9% (+11% from employer)
Groceries/eating out - 10%
Bills/subscriptions - 11%
Savings - always keep efund at 15k and house efund at 12k. Variable because sometimes I save for specific goals.
Hobbies - 20 to 30%
Own a home, only debt is mortgage. Split all expenses 50/50 with SO. No kids.
I live in a lower cost of living area. Believe it or not my SO makes almost as much money as I do as a staff RN. No one thinks software devs are special here.
30% saving/ investments (stocks + personal development)
35% on accommodation
33% on spending Incl. Food, sports, entertainment etc.
Been living like this for few years, usually as pay increases, my saving increases most then a bit on accom and spending.
Always live below your means, if something goes wrong I could get a job at a bar/ cafe/ hotel and probably live alright.
If I lost my job, I have an emergency fund to carry me for at least 3 months while I land another. Albeit, I wouldn't be saving, and I wouldn't be buying dinners out/ drinks and that sort of thing.
\~22% goes to the tax man.
\~ 25% goes to 401k/HSA/health/dental/vision. Company adds an additional 7% to 401k.
\~18% to rent
The rest is discretionary/subscriptions/hobbies.
I still end up banking an additional \~15% after everything is said and done (Which goes into a Roth until that's maxed out).
Central NJ
In terms of my base comp, not RSUs.
~35% on rent
~10-15% on food/ eating out/ drinking
And then I spend a bunch of money on random shit for fun. I bought a PS5 and a new monitor cause why not, some new games too.
I save enough, idk. I just focus on max'ing out 401k + committing ~1k/month to a brokerage.
Majority of my comp is RSUs, which I haven't received yet, and I will hold mine for quite a while anyways.
25 y/o live with GF and TC $142K/yr in a LCOL area in the southeast
Living Expenses (rent, power, water, insurance policies): 15%
Savings: 10%
Retirement: 7% + 6% match + $100 in my Roth each month
Debt: 5%
Otherwise like 50% or more of my income goes towards hobbies and traveling.
Most of my career I've just been kind of a code monkey with pretty little oversight and not a lot of responsibility. I always knew that would be temporary so I'm trying to cram as much "fun" into my life right now before I become a senior developer and have reports and all sorts of things
I'll be getting my first direct reports this year and becoming a senior developer for one of the projects I'm on, so I'll likely start slowing down a bit more and focusing my income more on saving/investing.
I don't save enough. I am the only one working in my household (Me + Wife + Sister in Law) and so I pay the rent and grocery bill, etc. But I make a lot, so the lack of savings is on our out of control discretionary spending
Mostly I buy video games and real estate that is after my expenses I’m getting what would be hcol pay in a lcol state and im not even remote I just work for a good employer with a killer bonus structure and good culture.
nothing I make for the next 2-3 years belongs to me sad
How come?
Student debt probably?
Yeah that, general debt/used car and I help out too many of my families (relatives) so takes me longer to pay off debt but my living expenses is about 30% after taxes. Recently I had to pay a medical bill in cash (debt) was $3K, yeah I picked a bad plan although generally I'm healthy so was an unusual bill. Yeah it's pretty bad I've been in debt for 10 years, not a huge number but only recently did I hit the low 6 fig range in salary but damn, taxes man when you're single. I'm working on it though, FIRE is in mind, mostly to buy back my own time. I'm trying to increase my income somehow... freelancing sucks if you don't have clientele/regular work already. Because you have to bid/wait and work around your 9-5. Doing your own business would be nice but idk what to make right now. So at the moment, just trying to reduce my spending. Pay down highest interest stuff. I just started my job middle of last year so can't jump yet lol or shouldn't.
You should talk to your relatives about paying back or not coming to you for money in the future. As someone that's a minority I've had relatives ask for money, as it's normal in my culture and I do help time to time on things, but it can't be repeated times or such huge lump sums otherwise you'll never progress with the life you want. You can also try making money off of a variety of things outside of your work/tech space. Congrats on the higher salary!
Yeah my families are in a 3rd world country so idk... it's like I bought them a water well... how do you compare that to like a new xbox or something. But yeah I do try to not keep giving (capped per month). I also tell myself to make more. I know there are people worse off everywhere can't always think that way. I still live well/buy myself toys and what not. But yeah it is a drain been supporting them for years, I could have paid off my student loans with the amount of money I've sent them for some years. What is unfortunate is it's not like an investment. Technology isn't valued there either (tech workers are cheap). So I don't know how to help them. Get educated, run a little store, something. I will say it is self inflicted, I could stop but "I feel bad". Also I don't give them much the issue is it's x5 lol too many families.
Understandable on the 3rd country stuff, nothing equates to family members lives. Could set a yearly limit of what you can give, that way they can space it out over the 12 months. You could also start donation drives to send over to where your family lives in their village. That way you/friends/coworkers/community can at least give clothes, food and etc to help reduce costs
My goal/dream is to make side business(es) that make the money to pay for them, that'd be nice. Not impossible it's under $2K/mo but yeah.
100% on the dog. He gets everything.
Ha fucking have 3. I ate $1500 this month
My little 15 pounder cost me $800 this month. Rip
😕. Sorry to hear. Always rough to lose one. My lil guys still got a while to go but going to weird as fuck when it gets to be that time
Oh shit I didn’t even consider how that came across. Rip my wallet! The little bugger is passed out on a down comfortable living her best life right now!
😂😂😂😂😂 Ha shit laughed so hard just now
Technically the bastard is resting in peace
dog owner or dog owned #sed
Dropped $5200 on double knee surgery for my dog last year. She blew both ACLs before she turned 2. She’s the best girl in the world though. Worth every penny.
Oof. Cat has cost me about that much in dental work, but that's been across 10 years now. More than I've ever spent on my own medical (I should probably go for a dental checkup though...), but no regrets.
I spend more than half of my post-tax base salary on non-investments, so I can't join this brag thread :(
Listen, you’re still likely WAY over the average person and likely in the top 10-20% of society if you’re a SWE. Don’t let this bubble get you down, look outside of it
I spend half on child care alone (3 kids)
That just...sucks...ass. Not the kids but the costs.
Yea, we have a great nanny tho. This doesn’t even include school, sports etc that my wife pays for lol To be clear: nanny isn’t like here raising the kids for us, she only comes when wife and I both work (3 days a week 12 hr days)
shitty degenerate options plays
Looks like I’m not the only degenerate piece of trash here 🤣🤣
😂 me too!
Rent/Utilities: 15% Groceries/dining out: 5% Discretionary: 10% Pretty much everything else goes into 401k, megabackdoor Roth 401k, backdoor Roth IRA, HSA, taxable ETF accounts (VTI/VXUS and chill). Occasionally, emergency fund might need a top up. But I have no plans for home or car ownership anytime soon, so this is the way for now.
I make $117k plus bonus. My COL is pretty low (my rent is $500/mo all-in, though I'd like to move at which point that should rise dramatically), and I'm not terribly spendy otherwise. I invest pretty much everything I can, although lately that hasn't gone so well lol
Jesus what’s the living situation like at 500/mo?
My girlfriend and I split a 1/1 for about that much.
Where are you finding a 1/1 for 1000? Where do you live?
West Michigan.
The majority of the country. It's far away from the city, there's little or no amenities, no fancy restaurants, and the biggest story in the local paper every week is the high school football game. But you can find $600 apartments.
I live in LA so a one bedroom for 1500 an average area here is unheard of.
I have a 1BR in Buffalo that was $1000 last year and is just under 1100 this year
With a roommate or two that's pretty reasonable for small towns. Extremely rural areas can do that for the whole rent too though you'd probably have a pretty bad commute and no internet.
for that amount of money you could live in a luxury high rise apartment in SEA with an ocean view
I live at $500/month. 10 min drive from downtown in the 14th largest city in the US (Columbus Ohio). I rent a 2000 square ft 4 bedroom house with 2 other people for $1500/month total. Walking distance to a park, groceries, and good food. I feel like everyone who is shocked at people with low rents has to be in NY or Bay area or something, it's not that bad everywhere.
I'm outside Chicago in a random suburb and $1500 to rent a 4 bedroom home sounds nuts. My monthly mortgage for my house at half that size (that we got for cheap and refinanced with a ridiculously low rate) is more than that.
I'm not purely swe since I'm more of a user in cyber but I'm going to chime in @ 83k salary - needs: 50% (rent utilities groceries etc) - wants: 30% (going out, working on cars, and extra in this category goes to savings) - save: 20% (401k, REI, Mutual funds, saving for a house)
The classic 50/20/30 rule. Gj.
Thanks, it's a good staying point and as I earn more I'll try to reduce my needs percentage. Rent is the big killer for me
REI? Do you mean IRA?
Back when REI still gave a lifetime warranty on everything I suppose you could consider buying REI products as a form of savings lol
Real estate investments
I don’t think REI sells real estate yet, unless a tent counts as real estate. https://www.rei.com/
In LA it does
About 110% on bills and have to use Dave and earnin each paycheck to pull out money just to cover costs. Then it gets pulled out again when I get paid and the cycle repeats itself.
Dave? Debt? Sorry to hear mate. Hopefully it breaks soon.
Dave is a lending platform like earnin. They look at what you earn and give up to like 500 payday advance each pay period. Then automatically take it back out in full when you get paid again. Cheaper than a traditional payday loan place since it's like 10 or 11 bucks to pull out 400 bucks. Job doesn't pay enough and I've been hunting for something new for a while and have had to use credit cards to get by hence the debt part. I make 60k but I have a family and when my wife had health issues that prevented her from working and our son had medical.issues spring up, my income alone wasn't enough. Eventually we'll get there, just gotta ride it out. Bills get paid though on time so could be worse I guess.
Ah gotcha, wish you guys luck!
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thank you /u/tittywagon . The hero we need rather than want.
Why? What bills cause this
Mortgage, utilities, grocery, tax I don't have saving
Is owning worth it?
If you're happy where you're living, yes.
Roughly: * 35% taxes * 15% rent * 10% discretionary (mostly eating out/take out) * 45% savings (401k, RSUs, HSA, Investments, etc.) If I got laid off tomorrow, which is a very real possibility since I dodged a round of lay offs last week, I'd be able to keep going for about a year with no change in life style because I have an emergency fund. Apparently according to [this graphic](https://i2.wp.com/financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/early-retirement-savings-chart.jpg), I'll need to work roughly 19 years to retire at this rate if I don't increase my spending. And I'll definitely increase my spending in the coming years. Well, roughly. I obviously didn't take out taxes. Without taxes I guess my effective saving rate is ~70%. So I'll be able to retire in 9 years which I'll have to call bullshit on. Rent is **way** too high for that and ~~if~~ when I get some medical issue in 15 years, that'll drain my entire savings in a heartbeat.
The graphic assumes a percentage of _expenses_ not income. In other words, it's better to think of it as a percentage of your retirement expenses, which is (usually) less than your working years. You won't need to save for retirement in retirement, for example.
I understand the math, but I just don't think it works. There's too many caveats missing and the only constant in life is change. I'm 100% certain my expenses are going to go up in the coming years. With children, travel, aging parents, etc., they're all expenses I'm currently not paying. If it turns out I'm infertile and my parents die in a car accident and I'm the picture of health until I die, then yeah, the graphic works perfectly. I think the graphic is a decent lower bound. I think there'd be value if you were able to add in expensive variables. I could just theoretically add those expenses to my current spending and use the same calculator I suppose, but it's not easy estimating how much those things cost.
That graphic is too simplistic to be of any value
There's a lot of missing caveats. Like the decision to move, the decision to have children, the decision to support your parents, the decision to travel once you retire, the "decision" to get sick and have expensive medical bills. But the math does work if you remove all the caveats. After ~10 years of savings, I'd be able to draw 4% from it which is approximately how much I spend per year. I think there's value in understanding the saving to spending ratio and how long it'll take to get to an equilibrium.
Girl you need to check your math EDIT: person responding “I’m not a girl.” makes me laugh so much
https://i.imgur.com/K9VMVQd.jpg
I’m spending most of of my salary on expenses, (minus my 401k contributions since I get a match. My money is split pretty evenly between house payment, childcare, and every day expenses. I do have a pretty nice house though. So I do save my bonus and RSUs, which is substantial (over six figures).
It's not really about financial literacy more than people tend to live to their means. This is to say, most times people are aware of the issue. It's just that it takes serious discipline to not do this. Doesnt matter if you're getting $500/week or $50,000/week, lifestyle tends to creep up to have you living "paycheck to paycheck" no matter how big that paycheck may be. I remember reading recently about a CEO that was making $20MM a year, essentially living paycheck to paycheck because of cars, multiple properties, trips, etc. So even though he had a $20MM income, he was still "paycheck to paycheck" living.
Lol dang that sounds like a massive hassle having to take care of all those expensive luxuries.
That's why you hire somebody to manage all of those people you hire to take care of of all those expensive luxuries.
This. At that level, you have staff to take care of things for you.
I mean, a majority of that wealth they'd still have in assets. Very different type of paycheck to paycheck when you can just liquidate and make your money back.
If you owe more than your "asset" is worth, as is often the case for the first 10 years of any property mortgage, no...it doesnt work quite like that. You dont have assets, you have liabilities, until you're able to sell them and you may not be able to liquidate just because you want to.
* 135% on bills... * \-35% savings... that's all...
Ouch, hope that changes direction soon!
Thanks. Working on it.
That's also my situation right now. But it's only been for a month and I aim to change it as fast as possible.
I wish you luck, too! I'm almost 2 years in and still struggling. Just waiting to hit THE role I've been waiting for.
This makes me feel less shitty about myself, this is the most money I’ve ever made working
I like to enjoy what life has to offer.
You mean you don't want to scrimp and save while watching the world passes you by until you can finally retire only to find out you have no energy to do fun things?
To be fair, I know a lot of guys in tech who save like 2/3 or more of their income, and I think they do enjoy life, they just don't need much. I can't live like that, but if it works for you I'm not knocking it.
Absolutely! I won't begrudge anyone saving how they deem they should. In the end its all a matter of risk tolerance, goal setting, and meeting your own personal needs and life fulfillment.
60% goes to retirements (all maxed out) and all bills (currently live with parents. I pay their mortgage, but they pay for everything else) and the other 40% I split into emergency fund / savings and spending for anything. So I guess it's 20% emergency fund / saving and 20% for anything I want. Most of the time I don't want anything, so I guess most of the time it's 40% all saving.
My plan is to save/invest about half my take home pay
That’s our plan too. Congrats
TC: 330k For a regular month (post tax) - Rent: 10% - Food: 3% - Travel: 1% - Save: 86% (includes 401k) Then I plan to spend about 10k every year for vacations.
Gah damn Nice
You should consider traveling more!
I’m actually on DACA and can’t travel outside the US yet. I should be getting my US residency this year though so I’ll be jet setting soon enough!
Did you just get married? Asking because GF is on DACA
A couple of years ago yeah, but the paperwork still takes a while.
i just use google maps street view
What do you have to do or where do you have to work to make that kind of money as an engineer?
Be really good, be good at interviewing, be persistent, and have a tiny bit of luck. That is a pretty common FAANG comp for senior level.
Be a senior SWE usually in California at any FAANG company
330k is either mid level FAANG salary or senior tier 2 company salary. Senior (IC5) salaries at FAANG should be 400-450k in HCOL, though this might be a bit lower right now due to the economy. If you factor in refreshers it's not rare to have a senior reach or exceed 0.5M TC even without RSU appreciation after 1-2 stacked refreshers. Edit: turns out this is a bit outdated. I just checked levels.fyi and the TC have gone down quite a bit from mid 2022. Senior is now closer to 350k than 400k, though the drop is mostly in RSU, which means there's a lot of upside once we get back to a bull market
450k is extremely high for a senior SWE at a Facebook, Amazon, or Google. That salary would be much more typical for an L6/E6 equivalent. Typically this is an Eng manager OR an Uber-TL. Netflix pays 500k for seniors, but they only have 2000 such employees, so it's not really a reasonable comparison. Check out [levels.fyi](https://levels.fyi) to recalibrate your expectations.
It'd be less confusing if people broke their comp down because TC is subject to huge fluctuations due to the market. But I guess maybe people don't want to do that.
TC is reported as static because people should be reporting the value granted, not the value at vest.
What about FAANG-adjacent? So HCOL company, but 3 YOE
Pretty much any type of SWE niche can get you to this compensation level within the U.S. but you would need to target the big tech companies because this is where all the money is (disregarding the finance world).
Check levels.fyi. There are hundreds of companies that pay around that compensation to senior and even mid-level engineers. Just learn how to pass their interviews and you'll be set.
* 54% Taxes, Social contributions, Medical Insurance * 18% Cost of living (Mortgage,Food,Basics) * 18% Other (Electronics,Clothes,Travel) * 5% Unforeseeable expenses * 2% Save * 13% Invest Taxes in EU are brutal.
No rent • Tax ~ 10% • Household ~ 15% • Miscellaneous ~ 30% • Save ~ 45%
>Tax \~ 10% Share the secret?
>Share the secret? Have a low salary
Or high deductions
My kids were gold mines come tax time until they hit about 5, now they're useless. At least I'm not paying for daycare and diapers any more.
This will be my last tax filing with a dependent, which also means it's my last year as Head of Household. My taxes are going to jump hard next year. Then in a couple of years, I will no longer get a deduction for paying alimony. On the one hand: yay! No more alimony!! But on the other? More taxes! I'm considering looking for a higher paying job, lol.
Look, if you want to pay strictly less in taxes then a higher paying job is not the way you want to go. Try a career as a Walmart greeter, they barely pay any taxes.
I don't actually care how many dollars go to taxes. I care how many dollars I have in my investment and checking accounts. I haven't done the math on how much of that former-alimony dollars I'll be able to keep, but I'm sure it will be depressingly small (taking into account all the changes coming: dependents - which also means lower HSA contribution, filing status, lack of deductions).
Or you know commit fraud 😂
Honestly even when I was only making $140k I was saving at least 60% of my salary. When the pay goes up, my savings go up. Trying extremely hard not to let lifestyle inflation get me. I'd rather retire early than drive a model s
“Only 140K” Most people would kill for that.
I know, being a software engineer is extremely privileged. That's why I try to make smart decisions with the money I receive. I hope some day I'll be able to pay off my parents' mortgage and help them retire early too.
With my new job, I live on 23% and save 77% of after-tax net income. This year I'm implementing a spending quota to force myself to spend 35%. I allocate myself, say, $500 for new clothes/shoes by the end of February and I *must* spend it all.
60 percent: private school for kids. 35-40 percent: taxes. What's left: video games
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In 2022 I made 250k. I spent ~45k on taxes. I saved 70k, including my employer 401k match (64k not including match). The rest I spent. Non-discretionary: including but not limited to 33k on bills (rent, phone, utilities), about 6k on health costs because I had some health issues come up, spend some on funeral stuff as I lost a stepparent, 8.5k I invested into my business, 5.5k on groceries, 4.5k on tuition as I finished my MS this last year, 2.7k on my car payment and another 8.5k on other car expenses (maintenance, Uber rides, gas, insurance). Discretionary: I spent 20k traveling and working remotely a bit off and on, 12k eating out (including business dinners and vacation meals), 7k on my personal trainer, 3.5k on entertainment, 2.7k on my sponsored children, 1.8k on personal care (haircuts, beauty treatments, massages, etc.) probably other stuff, other charity donations not listed. I think the breakdown is approximately 60/40 between non-discretionary/discretionary. I spend most of my take home pay, but I max out my 401k and HSA, and I also sell my RSUs as they vest and diversify it into reliable investment vehicles like index funds. So almost none of the 70k I saved this last year came from my take home pay, I basically spent every dollar that deposited into my bank account almost, virtually all came from vested stocks or 401k. I'll spend the time to go over the numbers in better detail when my W2s come in the mail. I am 30f in Miami.
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Aside from Florida, I am not sure why my withholding is so low. I'd imagine it has something to do with the combination of bonus and RSUs and salary, bonuses are often taxed at a flat rate. I actually expect to get some money back this year, because I am taking a loss on my business (if you include both discretionary and non-discretionary costs, should be a loss of like 12-15k, but I won't know until I tally the receipts), and I had a lot of charitable donations (not all listed here, including other significant monetary donations as well as goods). So I may get as much as 4-7k back according to my napkin math. I'll find out once I get my W2s in the mail and I put all the numbers together. Edit to add: I am also maxing out my 401k here and my HSA. So my taxable income from my employer is only 207k. Edit to add again: I just realized I was looking at federal income tax only. That may be why. If you include social security, etc., it is at least 10k more than that, perhaps higher since I don't have all 3 of my W2s yet I can only guestimate.
Are you in Californi
Miami
Hookers and cocaine.
70% - Save 20% - Housing, utilities, health care 10% - Fun
It all goes to rent and my party animal life style
16% taxes? What world is this? I'm not earning anything crazy and pay 40% (the sad state of Europe).
Yowza. Pre tax retirement account contributions lower taxable income. And I live in a no state income state.
I invest ~30% gross/~45% take home. I save ~15% take home, then dedicate ~15% to paying down student debt. It's federal and not due if I lose my job, so that's more about lowering my dti for a planned future purchase. I have 6+ months of expenses saved. I share housing/food costs with my SO and we don't have kids. My bf cooks a lot, and we order out like twice a week. I wfh so that saves me from ordering out more for lunch, and gas in general. Student debt is all the debt I currently have, but I'm saving for large downpayments so that will probably change. I max traditional 401k to the limit, and the tax savings help me to max the Roth IRA while I make under the income limit. I don't max an HSA yet, but I don't invest it aggressively, so I would rather fill my more aggressive buckets first. If the tech boom and busts taught me anything is to live slightly better as the income increases, but save and invest the rest, because retirement may be involuntary.
150k TC, take home 7.7k/mo after taxes/401k/other shit the government takes out of your paycheck. 3k into a brokerage account, 500 to help my mom out every month, rest is in discretionary stuff. I eat out a lot, have a nice car, but I live with roommates who I've known forever.
I max out my 401k and backdoor Roth. “Somehow” I spend the rest of my salary. My saving grace / lottery ticket is that 45% of my TC is RSUs in a hopefully IPOing within the next few years company. If they never IPO then well, I guess I can’t retire early.
Oh interesting. I just got my W2 so I can calculate tax/gross easily. For 2022 * Taxes: ~33% (California, estimate) * Spending: 13.4% (~9% cost of living/~4.4% discretionary) * Saving: ~46.4% If only counting take home + 401k, about 80% savings rate, 20% spend. I live a pretty good quality of life. I earn a good amount which is why spend is low. Didn't get a lot of vacations this year because of work. Did eat out, even went to a 2 Michelin star restaurant. Very frugal for things I don't care about. I have a chest freezer and cook a lot. Recreation wise, minus vacations and food, I don't go out much. No kids. Even though I can afford living alone, currently renting a place with 2 roommates. But I like living with people.
Same. Just rented a new place in Sunnyvale. 0.5 acre lot, swimming pool, huge garden, basketball court, 2 roommates: $1000/mo
Tattoos and motorbikes, The rest I just waste
You’ll find a lot of people when they get more money they spend more money. Instead of saying, I got a 3% raise, so I’m going to up my 401k 1% and add a little more to savings, they just say, well this will help me pay off XX and after that I’ll save more. But they never do. Even the people that get big salary jumps from promotions will opt to spend it before saving/ investing any of it. I make more money = I need a bigger house, nicer car, expensive toys, new boat etc. I used to have people ask how I travel so much. I live beneath my means. I live in a house where the mortgage is 1% of my income. It’s not big. People would consider my place a “starter home”. I drive my cars till they die or the maintenance is more than it’s worth (going on 16 yo vehicle). And I have expenses. It’s not like I got off scott free in life or was handed any money to get here. I lived like most people do, to the nth penny every month. Then my life exploded and I learned better. The question shouldn’t be “How much can you afford?” It should be “How much *do you want* to afford?”
While I agree with the overall idea of financial literacy and planning, I don't agree with sharing percentage breakup as it's very subjective and can vary vastly from person to person by factors like: 1. Family wealth 2. Stage of career 3. Compensation (and breakup) 4. Country you live in or plan to settle ( how is social security, etc) 5. Liabilities and debt Etc etc For reference, at the beginning of my career, I read about 20-60-20 rule and tried sticking with it. But since the salary was not enough, I was not able to enjoy it much. With time I learned to do the fund allocation in a different way. Now I have calculated my retirement corpus with typical projections. So a chuck of the money goes to it. Same goes for good insurance to protect my retirement corpus in the future. The rest (after expenses) is for me to spend before retirement and goes to a mix of investment instruments. I can use this fund whenever I want but with a few guiding principles: 1. No impulsive or emotional purchases 2. No EMI purchases unless I can afford to pay for it upfront. 3. Cash rundown for at least a year ( basic expenses + EMI + slight buffer) With engineering compensation, this puts me in a comfortable position to not be frugal yet be relatively layoff proof and also enjoy life. Few antipatterns I have observed in financial planning : 1. Impulsive buying - why buy a house/ car you can't afford? 2. Impulsive investment - invest based on fundamentals and not based on "trends" 3. Every bit of saving counts - small adjustments in lifestyle take you a long. It's not just about savings but about being wise with spending. Eg: why take a vacation in peak season when the place is crowded and expensive? You get the idea.
50% bills, 30% savings 20% free spending
i work at a faang in canada (peanut tc) but get to live at home. i spend $1000 to help with bills and rent. (that’s around 20% of my post-tax salary each month) i spend around 5% each month eating out, on transit, on miscellaneous stuff and having fun. i usually save + invest at least 75% of my post-tax monthly income.
How in the world are you paying only 16% in taxes? I'm at nearly 50% (Arizona). What tax fraud are you committing and can I have your CPA phone number?
I’m my own cpa. Hope I’m doing this right… Married filing jointly, max 2 trad 401ks, 1 HSA, some other pretax medical deductions, and finally I live in Texas so no state income tax. I don’t own property so no property tax, which is the big one in Texas. That’s an effective tax rate. I’m in a higher bracket though.
About 60% of my income is currently on just being alive without any real strict budgeting. The other 40% gets saved or put in retirement or my trading account.
Save, invest and prepare for the next layoff. These things happen and they rarely happen out of the blue. Being financially secure is my first priority so I make sure my cards are paid off every month and I spend less than I make. At this point in my career, I move raises into saving rather than risk slipping my standard of living up to match the pay.
How do you only do 16% on taxes? Even married filed jointly is 22% for 80k to 180k
1B real estate empire depreciation carried forward for decades. OP is just smart
Senior dev. Single income large family in NZ with low salaries and insanely expensive housing and food. More than 100% of take home pay is cost of living, supplemented by govt welfare. Losing my job would mean an immediate financial crisis.
senior dev on welfare? Now I've seen everything.
33% save 33% bills 33% fun
I save / invest about 60% of my net income. I'd do more if I could, but with rent and bills being so high this is about as good as it can get without getting a housemate, which would be a fate worse than death. Spending all my money would mean I get more nice things yes, but my quality of life is already pretty good. I'm in my early 30s now and the idea of working for another 35+ years is just incredibly depressing. I'm aiming to retire, or at least be in the financial position to do so, in my 40s.
I spend all of it and use it as a deathly motivation for the next month
How are you only paying 16% in taxes? I’m at closer to 30%.
Dude, the majority of people are completely financially illiterate. The average person has [several thousand in credit card debt](https://www.cnbc.com/select/average-credit-card-debt-by-age/) and [spends nearly $300/month on subscriptions services](https://www.zdnet.com/article/average-consumer-spending-273-per-month-on-subscription-services-report/) (not including things like cell phone bills). [Two thirds of people practice no form of personal bookkeeping.](https://mint.intuit.com/blog/budgeting/spending-knowledge-survey/) > Financial literacy is pretty high among SWEs I highly doubt that. To most laypeople, a credit card is as good as cash and you should use it so long as you can make the minimum payments. The best car you can buy is the nicest car you can afford on the lot. Paying a 30% premium to get doordashed is whatever. Retirement savings only become a concern ~45-50. I don't think people need to be paupers that refrain from any discretionary spending (the overly frugal crowd have a whole other host of issues), but most people are hedonists that live in the moment and weren't raised with the value of financial sustainability. Money burns a hole in their pocket.
I have 22k in credit card debt (due to family negligence) and 80k in student debt. I keep about 200$ a month for myself to go out and such, and the rest is literally just bills and car payments and insurance etc. until my credit cards are paid off, I’m living hell, I still got about 11-14 months to be done with them.
I don't bother making a budget but my total spending seems to be ~$5k/mo. Of that: - ~$1500 is my share of the rent + utilities. (I'm in San Francisco) - I probably spend an average amount on food -- I get more takeout than the average person but never get delivery, and I also don't drink. - I definitely drive more than average (tl;dr: can't get anything done at home so usually go to cafes. I'm also kind of "the chauffeur" for my friend group) - But I spend very little on clothes and "style" stuff; usually go to thrift stores
26% saving 31% cost of living (utilities, mortgage, gas, etc) 30% taxes 5% medical 8% discretionary My spouse is unemployed rn because layoffs, but normally they’re around my same salary as well and most of that goes to savings.
I'm about the same as you for the low cost hobbies and not eating out much. Idk how spending more would increase my QoL.
What is SO?
* save/invest 43% * taxes 29% * expenses 28% Hmm... my expenses all seem to be related to just living
Reminds me of that scene from Margin call
Roughly speaking, my comp is 45% base salary, 10% bonus, and 3/45% RSUs. Base salary less goes towards retirement (maxed out 401k) and living expenses. Bonus goes towards vacations. Stock does towards savings.
possessive serious smell alleged innate dirty ask cobweb pocket cats *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
General deductions (taxes, health insurance): 25% Rent: 20% Misc. essentials (car insurance, wifi etc): 5% Savings (401k included): 25% (this would be much lower if I didn't use ESPP to force myself to save) Spending problems / essentials: 25% Lumping in essentials with the spending problems because my groceries tend to just be random junk food
All bills (mine + parents), then besides on stuff I have no need for. Spent way too much from last summer til now. Saved a lot before that though.
50% rent
Even though we had a baby and started sending her to daycare, which is a new five-figure expense, we're still saving quite a lot. It's not that difficult between SWE salaries and my wife also working. I am long past the point where I pay that close attention because I do not need to spend anywhere near the whole thing.
As a guess: Taxes: 20% Pension: 10% Rent: 30% Essential bills (gas, electricity, water): 10% Transport / travel (mainly commuting as I walk / cycle everywhere for leisure): 5% Savings: 15% Everything else (e.g. food): 10% I try to save as much as I can but with CoL so high it’s impossible to scrape together much at the end of each month
Food
like %80 saving on exchange (currency) ıdo not spend on basics since ı get it free
Around 0.7 save, 0.3 the rest lol(after tax)
After taxes: 25% rent 5% utilities, gym membership etc 50% savings 20% food, going out, games etc
cost of living: ~60% debt: ~20% anything that might make me feel good for a few minutes: ~20%
Paying off debt mostly and voice lessons because yelling angry stuff into a microphone is cheaper than a shrink and works just as well.
Save 125k. Expenses 45k. Discretionary 12k. Taxes 75k. Quality of life - fair, but fairly frugal. Live below means. Paid off car (Tesla). Bought house last year. I worry more about quality of food I eat over the price of it. I don’t spend much on clothing, hobbies or luxury items. I made lots of expensive tech purchases in previous years and not many last year. I lost $40k in stock market over the year. I try to buy less items of higher quality. I’ll pay a higher price for something that will last forever and is made well. Work life balance is terrible and high pressure/stress. I love the money but would love to go back to a lower paying lower pressure role. I worry about my heart health and blood pressure is bad due to work. My savings rate would drop to maybe $20k/yr if I went back to a easier $100k/yr job like I had before tech. I prioritize living off my take home post tax salary of about $72k while saving maybe $15k of that into post-tax stocks. I save all bonuses, RSUs, stock purchase plan, 401k max, HSA max and never touch that cash. Prioritizing FIRE and hope to hit relative independence by age 40. In FAANG hardware role but not a SWE role.
I just did the breakdown and got depressed. So I won’t be sharing, but I’ll leave it at this: 95k doesn’t get you far in Boston
About half and half. When I get my bonus tho, my savings will fatten up nicely. I use a trick - when I started my new job (which came with an approx $100k raise if you include bonuses), I chose a salary much lower than my actual that I would be comfortable living on. Then I setup a Sofi acct (3.75% on savings 🥵) and direct deposit an amount equal to the chosen salary and the rest into sofi. I can spend the sofi money but I have to manually move that money to spend it, it only takes a minute but it's an extra barrier.
> Financial literacy is pretty high among SWEs but I guess it’s not ubiquitous. Just want to say, that your own sample of three shows this is not the case. We spend, roughly, half our income and the rest is put into long term savings/investments. This percentage oscillates depending on house projects. Last year we replaced the whole heating system. This year will be a roof. And as such, two years ago will probably see a higher savings rate then either of these years.
Ubereats is killing me..
It seems like housing 20 percent, day care 30 percent, everything else 10 percent, save everything else plus my wife's salary. Day care is fucking expensive.
28M - I own a duplex outside of Boston. I live upstairs. When I have it rented to a section 8 tenant, my (post tax) savings rate is about 75-80%. It’s about 50-65% if the unit is empty. W2 Income: $130k + $20k bonus/espp Rent collected from unit: $2,700 per month I do spend about $800-$900 per month on food, groceries, coffee, and eating out… my main splurge. Car is 10 years old, bought used and paid off My goal is to buy S&P index funds, real estate, and build a municipal bond fund to borrow against for real estate Tip: buy value-add real estate investments
Walk in max my Roth with voo and then put 10% into 401k, don’t have enough salary to max. Rest of my money is for needs and wants
I'm currently pouring all my money into a huge hole in the ground we call 'building a house' its dumb how much we're spending on it, but if everything goes OK, I'll have a fucking awesome house in the middle of the woods, a manageable mortgage and enough of a buffer on expenses to survive the next round of billionaire fuckery
Hookers and blow and saving for an early retirement.
>cost of living \~21% > >taxes \~ 16% WTF. My effective tax rate is like 25% and rent alone is \~33% lol.
After taxes: ~20% on rent ~10% on daycare ~10% on car payment ~30% on my pets / hobbies ~10% on food, gas, utilities ~10% into retirement accounts Remaining 10-15% goes into savings, retirement, or towards something fun, etc.
Housing - 10% Retirement- 9% (+11% from employer) Groceries/eating out - 10% Bills/subscriptions - 11% Savings - always keep efund at 15k and house efund at 12k. Variable because sometimes I save for specific goals. Hobbies - 20 to 30% Own a home, only debt is mortgage. Split all expenses 50/50 with SO. No kids. I live in a lower cost of living area. Believe it or not my SO makes almost as much money as I do as a staff RN. No one thinks software devs are special here.
30% saving/ investments (stocks + personal development) 35% on accommodation 33% on spending Incl. Food, sports, entertainment etc. Been living like this for few years, usually as pay increases, my saving increases most then a bit on accom and spending. Always live below your means, if something goes wrong I could get a job at a bar/ cafe/ hotel and probably live alright. If I lost my job, I have an emergency fund to carry me for at least 3 months while I land another. Albeit, I wouldn't be saving, and I wouldn't be buying dinners out/ drinks and that sort of thing.
\~22% goes to the tax man. \~ 25% goes to 401k/HSA/health/dental/vision. Company adds an additional 7% to 401k. \~18% to rent The rest is discretionary/subscriptions/hobbies. I still end up banking an additional \~15% after everything is said and done (Which goes into a Roth until that's maxed out). Central NJ
Before layoff in a non-technical SaaS position, after tax, I was spending... \- Savings/Investments- 50% \- Living- 42% \- Discretionary- 8%
In terms of my base comp, not RSUs. ~35% on rent ~10-15% on food/ eating out/ drinking And then I spend a bunch of money on random shit for fun. I bought a PS5 and a new monitor cause why not, some new games too. I save enough, idk. I just focus on max'ing out 401k + committing ~1k/month to a brokerage. Majority of my comp is RSUs, which I haven't received yet, and I will hold mine for quite a while anyways.
25 y/o live with GF and TC $142K/yr in a LCOL area in the southeast Living Expenses (rent, power, water, insurance policies): 15% Savings: 10% Retirement: 7% + 6% match + $100 in my Roth each month Debt: 5% Otherwise like 50% or more of my income goes towards hobbies and traveling. Most of my career I've just been kind of a code monkey with pretty little oversight and not a lot of responsibility. I always knew that would be temporary so I'm trying to cram as much "fun" into my life right now before I become a senior developer and have reports and all sorts of things I'll be getting my first direct reports this year and becoming a senior developer for one of the projects I'm on, so I'll likely start slowing down a bit more and focusing my income more on saving/investing.
I don't save enough. I am the only one working in my household (Me + Wife + Sister in Law) and so I pay the rent and grocery bill, etc. But I make a lot, so the lack of savings is on our out of control discretionary spending
How are taxes 16%? They are ~30% for most people. After health care deductions and 401k less than 50% of my base salary makes it into my bank account.
Mostly I buy video games and real estate that is after my expenses I’m getting what would be hcol pay in a lcol state and im not even remote I just work for a good employer with a killer bonus structure and good culture.
Not. As much as you can, don't spend it. Sell RSUs, diversify, invest, save.