Advice on Rent considering Budget (loan, money, pay)

[PK12]

Echoing others here – the sooner you learn to make sacrifices and adjust your lifestyle, the better you will be placed to deal with future situations that would require you to do so..

…but more importantly, if you make sacrifices now, pay that debt down and learn to manage your money, you will be more financially sorted and may not need to make too many sacrifices in the future

Find a room share close to a metro stop in Arlington for under $1K/month, set a budget aside for groceries and eat in/cook at home most of the time, take advantage of the many happy hour deals in Arlington/DC so that youre spending wisely yet not sitting bored at home.. there’s many ways you can make it work.

Good luck, and welcome to the area!

[blackDonDraper]

thanks all. i want to clarify. id be sharing a townhome with 3 others and a bathroom with another guy. the 1150 is also rent+util+cable+internet+maid service. so i think that makes rent closer to 1000. i havent found many other places in clarendon with rent less than 1000 and when i do, that doesnt include utilities. which makes me think it a good deal. amirite?

[PK12]

Hmmm not bad, but something tells me that might be slightly high, considering that you'll be sharing a bathroom.

Where specifically is this TH located in Clarendon? Is it close to all the action on Wilson and Clarendon Blvd, or further in ?

[Yankeesfan]

That sounds like a great price for a place in Clarendon.

[marie5v]

I am not so sure you can do while making that loan payment. When I made 65K a year, my take-home pay was only about 3300 per month. Of course, my withholding is different from yours, and I had other deductions you might not have. But if you figure 1150 for rent and 1200 for the loan, that's already 2350. Once you factor in utilities and food, you will be nearing your limit of "comfort." If that's all you have, you should be able to manage it just fine, but if you have other expenses you haven't considered, you'll probably have to reduce your loan payment.

[Carlingtonian]

If you truly are the black Don Draper, you're going to need to budget for plenty of Canadian Club, hotel rooms with your mistresses, and dry cleaning of all those white dress shirts. And for lawyers--because divorce.

In seriousness, that rent sounds pretty great for the Orange Line, especially with all those things included.

[blackDonDraper]

Its pretty close. According to google maps, its a 13 minute walk to the clarendon metro station, so i would say its pretty close.

[Flamingo13]

Can you condense your threads into one? You have THREE threads on this topic.

[blackDonDraper]

no, just two. the other one wasn't getting very many replies. sorry if that's a faux pas, those are my first two posts.

[boyd888]

Your take home pay per month should be around 3500. You should also put money into your 401(k) up to whatever your company matches, otherwise you are just giving money away.

3500-1150-1200 = $1150

The thing that helps you is not having a car. A single guy will have no issues with 1150 a month also I assume you are overpaying on those loans and the actual minimum on them is more like 700. If you feel things are tight you could always lower your payments then increase them as you get raises. 75K loans for undergrad I assume? Not good planning, but too late now for that.