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Lets say you earned $ 2,000 a month take home pay. What are the percentages that your Bills should work out to be ?
Like Housing what % ?
Utilities % ?
Food / Insurance / Misl ?
How much of that should be put into savings ?
So that you live a frugal life that is not beyond your means ?
There is a good book named "The richest man in Babylon".
Google it, it's timeless classic , very short read too.
In the nutshell , you gotta be able to live (all bills ,everything ) on 70% of what you make, save at least 10% (meaning 10% is minimum to save but if you feel comfortable u can go with more) its only to be used in emergencies and have to make interest but it gotta be safe.Plus it's got to be pay ur self first, when u get paycheck first thing u do is set 10% a side and then work with the rest.
20% goes toward paying off any outstanding debt .
In book author said you got to put some $$ aside for retirement too, and that's separate from 10% previously mentioned (my guess that's comes out of that 20%)
Point of the book is to live within your means, not too frugal but not to overspend neither, enjoy life w/o being worried about debt.
Hope this helps
It would be very hard to ever put aside money on $2000 a month income.
to everyone disagreeing with this, he/she said that it's hard, not impossible. Although where I live, I'll go ahead and say that pretty much is impossible.
to everyone disagreeing with this, he/she said that it's hard, not impossible. Although where I live, I'll go ahead and say that pretty much is impossible.
Saving : Whether its $ 20 or $ 200 a month is a good idea
I prefer for housing to be under 25% of your mo. income. Your largest monthly expense should be the cash you put in your emergency fund and retirement fund each month. It should not even be close. The rest of your mo. expenses should be cut as much as you can cut it. Staying out of debt will go along way to help in cutting your expenses. Just be creative.
As for froggin4colorado's post.... I agree with you. Teachers are grossly underpaid. If we stopped spending so much money adding every luxury known to man to our schools and just provide the basics and put the extra money in the teachers pockets, our kids would be better off. Good luck to you.
I prefer for housing to be under 25% of your mo. income. Your largest monthly expense should be the cash you put in your emergency fund and retirement fund each month. It should not even be close. The rest of your mo. expenses should be cut as much as you can cut it. Staying out of debt will go along way to help in cutting your expenses. Just be creative.
25%?? where do you live that you can rent anywhere liveable for 500 dollars?
25%?? where do you live that you can rent anywhere liveable for 500 dollars?
the only way to do it would be with housemates. although I stuck a ton of luck renting a small but very nice guest house during college for $600/month, I wouldn't want to count on having to find another sweet deal like that. I guess it does take quite a bit of luck to be able to survive on such a small amount, though.
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