<< Back to all Blogs
Login or Create your own free blog
Layout:
Home > Monthly money allocation

Monthly money allocation

November 24th, 2009 at 10:20 pm

1st Priority: Bills
I can't remember if it's your total bills or just the rent portion, but I was told that your bills or rent should never exceed 50% of your monthly income. Either way, I'm safe (for now). Downtown DC is way too expensive. Sure I could move to the hip part of town for the cool cost of...oh say twice what I'm paying for rent now. I prefer Silver Spring, MD. My work is a straight shot down East West Hwy to Bethesda (10 minute drive). Moving back to DC would exponentially increase my morning commute and thus eat into sleep time. I enjoy sleep too much. I digress. Back to 1st priority: Bills.
Monthly Bills - $780.00

2nd Priority: Retirement
My dad is a financial adviser and happy that I've finally taken the responsibility of retirement seriously. I guess it's never too late. And why not? If your company matches you - it's free money. Seems like a no brainer to me, but then again I started way too late so...what do I know? Anyhow, I've made up for it with a combination of aggressive contributions and allocations. My original allocation was way too conservative and way too little. We had a Fidelity representative come in. He took one look at my portfolio and said, "You've got the allocations of someone in their mid 40s" I fixed that right away, more than doubling my contributions and allocating them much more aggressively.
Monthly 401k Contributions - $710.00

3rd Priority: Emergency Fund
This goal is already completed and thank god because it was not easy. 5 months worth of living expenses set aside here. I consider living expenses to be all inclusive of all monies spent. Not just rent and bills, but food, gas, toiletries, etc. Fin.

4th Priority: Travel Fund
I'm from Hawaii so my travel fund is primarily for going home. I've been home once in the last 3 1/2 years and I've got a serious jones for the beach. Not just surfing. I'm talking ambiance. I'm talking the vistas. I'm talking the smell of the ocean and the sound of the waves. The mid Atlantic just doesn't do it for me. I'm definitely going home in March now that I can finally afford it.
Monthly Travel Fund - $200.00

5th Priority: Personal Savings
All of this money is pretty much spent or about to be on Christmas gifts.
Monthly Savings - $200.00

Posted in Budgeting | 5 Comments »

5 Responses to “Monthly money allocation”

  1. miz pat Says:
    November 24th, 2009 at 10:32 pm 1259101936
    1259101936

    If I may ask, how much do you have in your emergency fund? I'm building one for myself as well.

  2. whitestripe Says:
    November 24th, 2009 at 11:46 pm 1259106395
    1259106395

    i heard that your rent should never exceed 30% of your income. here when you apply to rent, the real estates (well, most of them anyway) will not rent to you if your rent exceeds 33% of your income. I think our mortgage is just over 33%. *shrug* we're comfortable.

  3. Ghostface Scrilla Says:
    November 24th, 2009 at 11:47 pm 1259106440
    1259106440

    Whoa, someone actually read what I wrote?! My emergency fund covers all the monthly bills and a barebones existence beyond that. We're not talking ribeyes and high def cable here. We're talking pork and beans and standard def so it was a matter of stripping away all the bells and whistles. I've got about $6800 which should cover everything ($3900-bills, $2900-spending money). This also means that deposits to all other savings vehicles dry up during these 5 months.

  4. dtss Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 03:50 am 1259121048
    1259121048

    Hey, we're probably neighbors! I live in downtown Silver Spring. Rule of thumb for housing is 30% of gross monthly income, but I agree it's hard to stick to that in HCOL areas, especially mortgages.

  5. dtjunkie Says:
    November 26th, 2009 at 09:57 am 1259229457
    1259229457

    Welcome! Yes, what you write will be read and most likely be commented on by fellow penny pinchers.

Leave a Reply

(Note: If you were logged in, we could automatically fill in these fields for you.)
*
Will not be published.
   

* Please spell out the number 4.  [ Why? ]

vB Code: You can use these tags: [b] [i] [u] [url] [email]