Monthly Budget in US

You live in Bay area and the rent is only $1000???

 

Yes roma, it is actually $950, we are in Concord. But it is not so great and we are planning to shift to a better one soon.

 

Oh Ok, I thought SF area or Silicon Valley. Rent is so high there

 

I am in mid-west so salaries are bit lower here compared to east coast and west coast. NYC, I should get 20K more easily.

I am single, late 20s 29 to be exact.
HH means household income, which includes spouse, rental income, etc.

Also I do not have a lot of work exp. But I have worked with many smart people in my Bank who have crossed 250K before they hit 35. My old division head did at 29, he moved to a tech giant. My new head is a woman around 32 I think, still young by any means.

 

The member with $800 grocery might be in east coast. NYC area probably, might be even LA.
I had a friend in Stamford. Well I was shocked at prices when we did grocery shop. $100 for basic stuff, 10-12 items. This was back in 2006. I used live down south where it was much cheaper.
$400 per pseron still might be high. May be they shop in Whole foods or something similar.

 

I like your idea. Even I used to do it, too much money on hand is not good.

I think everyone should match to company contribution. It is free money anyway.
Anything beyond is ok, if you do not have other avenues of investment.

Remember when you take 401k money out, you will pay taxes. So you do not pay tax today but tomorrow you might be in a higher bracket. Market is good now in last one year, so people who did contribute more would have well.

I do 7%, company puts 7%. 6% is minimum to get full company match. I just put in 1% extra.
I moved into bonds, so I did not see any gains this year. Last year was great by the way.

 

Tax = The tax items that you would see on a pay check. I consider this as expense in my budget. I would consider the gross income on pay check as income.
Without tax is around 40% less than the original expenses.

I have reduced my expenses(some examples):
1) I never use the post paid monster cell phone plans. I use prepaid service with the iphones(no data plans) bought privately.
2) I dont take loans anywhere in this world, so, no interest paying(very few cases where I get damn low rate where I can make better rate on that amount investing somewhere else).
3) I watch all of my expenses (above $100).
4) Rule at home: Anyone can buy anything, but it must be used by them, they cant buy, try and fill it in the shelf. No food wastage.
5) I use Roku with yupptv channels usage($5/month effectively) for international TV.
6) I use Ooma telephone for landline, pay $0/month.
7) I use Dial91 service for international phone.
8) I always buy high quality, best branded items, use them for their full usage. Dont fill the house with cheap stuff.
9) I buy all non-indian store items from Costco (usually stack them when there is a monthly coupon comes)
10) I am making money off my costco executive membership+Costco Amex card(shared between me and my old roommate)
I never run aggressive in spending. I will check my expenses at least once in a week on my Quicken.

 

I dont put my personal (numbers etc) online at any cost. I use quicken desktop only, I dont even use their cloud too. I run my quicken data on a USB drive. No one can open it at any time.
Mint maintains all our data in their servers, I dont trust such thing. Even I dont e-File my taxes, I just paper file till today.