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In which I am crass and discuss money
It was brought to my attention that I do not especially know how to budget1.
That's mostly okay, in that I've been a dumb privileged white kid for the last bunch of years, and one of the infinite advantages of having parents willing to pay for college is that they pay for room and board too. Budgeting for me has exclusively thus far been "do I have enough money for that event I want to go to" and I can more or less afford that on babysitting.
But I'm going to join the real world somewhere in the next 3-6 months, and not only do I not have a great grasp on how much the world is going to cost, I don't think I have a particularly good grasp on what I'm going to be spending that money on. A friend mentioned that he was paying about a thousand a month, for everything except rent and utilities, and I certainly *think* I can keep my expenses under that number2, but I don't know if I'm managing to account for everything I'll need to spend money on.
So that's what I'm really asking for: What things am I going to be spending money on that I don't necessarily realize I'll spend money on?
Sitting down and thinking about it, I know there's:
*Rent and utilities
*Groceries/eating out (which is a huge "I have no idea" since I've been living off my meal plan for three and a half years --I imagine I should be able to keep myself fed grocery-wise for a hundred a week, I think that's about what I've spent on the (very few) times when I've had to fend for myself.)
*Dance, which is non-negotiable. If I can afford it in September, I should _absolutely_ get a season pass for SCD, which changes the shape of how much dance costs per month.
(as an aside, that's one of the things I'm finding complicated about trying to write a budget for myself, in that "monthly expenses" is easier than dividing "expenses per semester" by three, or trying to work out how much a year-pass would cost and when I would need that money and such.)
*Transit, which I imagine is hugely variable. If I only ever took the T places, it would be a straight 60/month, but I also have a bike to repair and a future zipcar membership, and taxis and stuff. But on the flip side, if the bike is in good shape, and the weather is nice, I can spend maybe like fifteen dollars on the T and spend the rest of my necessary transit time riding my bike.
*Laundry, which becomes more important as I have to wear more professional clothing, since I don't have enough of said clothing, and therefore have to do laundry more often.
*Also, buying more clothing of the professional sort. I mean, I rock the thrift-store chic so hard, so I'd like to hope I wouldn't be spending too terribly much on this, but it's still a thing.
*Meds
*Other hospitaly/medical things, knock on wood. I don't think this counts as a monthly budget thing, so much as a "I should try to set aside a couple hundred(thousand?) dollars as soon as possible to be my "oh shit oh shit I just broke my leg" fund3.
And...what else? The last time I did anything like this it was in my seventh grade home ec class, where I think I was "renting" an apartment for 50 dollars a month, so it's not like I was exactly being taught accurate numbers for the real world so much as "here's how to balance your monies!"
The real world is hard, whine whine. But dammit, if I'm going to be an adult4, I might as well do it right, and not have to rely on other adults (read: my parents) for taking care of me.
Just rely on them for advice.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: I have gotten as far as "If there is money in my account I can buy things, if there is not, I can't" and seem to do okay with that, but, uh, yeah.
2: More importantly, doing some googling and finding out how much I will make as a teacher implies that (assuming I get a job), I should be making at least 24k a year, which gives me enough for rent/utilities and "everything else". Assuming that my combined rent+utilities is in the thousand dollars or less range, which I think is an okay guess considering the places I've been looking at with Ria and Lauren and Mason.
3: Although, assuming I broke my leg, I could just transfer my dance fund to medical. Gods forbid.
4: I think I've decided that I don't want to be an adult because adults are ridiculously dramatic, often uncommunicative, and generally immature. I'd like to be mature instead. It seems much easier.
Postscript: And yes, I am writing actual numbers for these in another file, in a "trying to inflate everything so I wind up with too much money rather than too little" sort of way. But I figured that would be too gauche even for me to post.
And not in the file yet, because I don't know what the shape of my life will be like yet, is the concept of long-distance travel in order to spend time with faraway friends and SOs. Which could be eighty dollars a month for train tickets, or 500plus for a cross-country plane ride. Plane tickets are definitely my most expensive regular expense.
Also not in the file is the general thought of "here are things I want" and taking steps to buy those things. One of the reasons I want to have some discretionary income is so that I can start scouting sales for expensive things I want/need, so that when they show up for a decent price, I can get them without stressing that I've just wrecked my budget for the month. See also, the fact that I think I want 3 TB of external storage --one for joba, one for backup, and one for media.
a: If everything stayed the same, I don't think I would _ever_ fill a TB of stuff just of assignments and resources and grades and worksheets and lessons and everything teaching will require. But things keep taking up more and more space, and inevitably I'll be teaching Skype lessons with an uberboard or something, and each lesson will be a gig and a half or something.
That's mostly okay, in that I've been a dumb privileged white kid for the last bunch of years, and one of the infinite advantages of having parents willing to pay for college is that they pay for room and board too. Budgeting for me has exclusively thus far been "do I have enough money for that event I want to go to" and I can more or less afford that on babysitting.
But I'm going to join the real world somewhere in the next 3-6 months, and not only do I not have a great grasp on how much the world is going to cost, I don't think I have a particularly good grasp on what I'm going to be spending that money on. A friend mentioned that he was paying about a thousand a month, for everything except rent and utilities, and I certainly *think* I can keep my expenses under that number2, but I don't know if I'm managing to account for everything I'll need to spend money on.
So that's what I'm really asking for: What things am I going to be spending money on that I don't necessarily realize I'll spend money on?
Sitting down and thinking about it, I know there's:
*Rent and utilities
*Groceries/eating out (which is a huge "I have no idea" since I've been living off my meal plan for three and a half years --I imagine I should be able to keep myself fed grocery-wise for a hundred a week, I think that's about what I've spent on the (very few) times when I've had to fend for myself.)
*Dance, which is non-negotiable. If I can afford it in September, I should _absolutely_ get a season pass for SCD, which changes the shape of how much dance costs per month.
(as an aside, that's one of the things I'm finding complicated about trying to write a budget for myself, in that "monthly expenses" is easier than dividing "expenses per semester" by three, or trying to work out how much a year-pass would cost and when I would need that money and such.)
*Transit, which I imagine is hugely variable. If I only ever took the T places, it would be a straight 60/month, but I also have a bike to repair and a future zipcar membership, and taxis and stuff. But on the flip side, if the bike is in good shape, and the weather is nice, I can spend maybe like fifteen dollars on the T and spend the rest of my necessary transit time riding my bike.
*Laundry, which becomes more important as I have to wear more professional clothing, since I don't have enough of said clothing, and therefore have to do laundry more often.
*Also, buying more clothing of the professional sort. I mean, I rock the thrift-store chic so hard, so I'd like to hope I wouldn't be spending too terribly much on this, but it's still a thing.
*Meds
*Other hospitaly/medical things, knock on wood. I don't think this counts as a monthly budget thing, so much as a "I should try to set aside a couple hundred(thousand?) dollars as soon as possible to be my "oh shit oh shit I just broke my leg" fund3.
And...what else? The last time I did anything like this it was in my seventh grade home ec class, where I think I was "renting" an apartment for 50 dollars a month, so it's not like I was exactly being taught accurate numbers for the real world so much as "here's how to balance your monies!"
The real world is hard, whine whine. But dammit, if I'm going to be an adult4, I might as well do it right, and not have to rely on other adults (read: my parents) for taking care of me.
Just rely on them for advice.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: I have gotten as far as "If there is money in my account I can buy things, if there is not, I can't" and seem to do okay with that, but, uh, yeah.
2: More importantly, doing some googling and finding out how much I will make as a teacher implies that (assuming I get a job), I should be making at least 24k a year, which gives me enough for rent/utilities and "everything else". Assuming that my combined rent+utilities is in the thousand dollars or less range, which I think is an okay guess considering the places I've been looking at with Ria and Lauren and Mason.
3: Although, assuming I broke my leg, I could just transfer my dance fund to medical. Gods forbid.
4: I think I've decided that I don't want to be an adult because adults are ridiculously dramatic, often uncommunicative, and generally immature. I'd like to be mature instead. It seems much easier.
Postscript: And yes, I am writing actual numbers for these in another file, in a "trying to inflate everything so I wind up with too much money rather than too little" sort of way. But I figured that would be too gauche even for me to post.
And not in the file yet, because I don't know what the shape of my life will be like yet, is the concept of long-distance travel in order to spend time with faraway friends and SOs. Which could be eighty dollars a month for train tickets, or 500plus for a cross-country plane ride. Plane tickets are definitely my most expensive regular expense.
Also not in the file is the general thought of "here are things I want" and taking steps to buy those things. One of the reasons I want to have some discretionary income is so that I can start scouting sales for expensive things I want/need, so that when they show up for a decent price, I can get them without stressing that I've just wrecked my budget for the month. See also, the fact that I think I want 3 TB of external storage --one for joba, one for backup, and one for media.
a: If everything stayed the same, I don't think I would _ever_ fill a TB of stuff just of assignments and resources and grades and worksheets and lessons and everything teaching will require. But things keep taking up more and more space, and inevitably I'll be teaching Skype lessons with an uberboard or something, and each lesson will be a gig and a half or something.
no subject
Put money into savings if at all possible. This is partly for "the miracle of compound interest," and more to get yourself into the habit of having the savings account be the one where money goes /into/ and not /out of/. Even $25-50 a month helps. And as noted, if you don't plan for it, you're likely to not do it.
If you can automate that, so much the better. Work lets me split my direct deposit among several accounts, so my checking account never even sees the money for savings. If that's not an option then maybe set up automatic recurring transfers with your bank from checking to savings.
(Ideally you want to have 3-6 months worth of expenses in a savings account where you can get at it quickly if necessary.)
Okay, savings rant over. Looks to me like you've covered most everything else. Don't forget to account for insurance and glasses in the 'other medical' category, and cell phone under 'utilities.'
Budgets suck. Saying "I will spend this much" is a good way for me to feel guilty when I spend more than that. What worked for me was tracking expenses and saying "okay, I usually spend about this much on this thing, which means I have this much left over for that other thing." Because I'm a geek and in front of a computer all day I built a spreadsheet, and I've entered every single thing I spent money on into it for the last five years, categorized and all that. (This has the added effect of keeping me from buying snacks from the machine because I don't want to have to enter "0.80: chips at work.")
It looks like my 'household expenses' (mostly groceries but also cleaning supplies and trips to the thrift store for clothing etc) came in at under $200/month while I was living by myself in (not-cheap) northern Virginia. As always, YMMV.
Lots of irregular expenses can be guesstimated: 'about how many times will i use the T in a week: two? three? how much does that cost? multiply by four' kind of thing.
Looking at your math... is your fn2 taking into account that you'll be paying 20-25% of that 24k/year in taxes?
As
Also, yay you for a) thinking and b) seeking advice about money.
no subject
Once you have that I think conventional wisdom says to split the savings 50-50 between a 401k / 403b (whatever the non-profit equiv of a 401k is) and something more liquid but not as liquid as the 3-6 month safety net. I'd recommend one of the Vanguard Index Funds or Vanguard Wellington. Once again they will automatically take money out of a checking account on a monthly basis. I'd recommend shooting for at least $100 a month into each. 3% to start is also a magic number into the 401k as that is what a lot of employers will match.
Once you have that it is said that it is a good idea to take 1/2 of every raise and use that to increase the amount you are saving until you get to the max on your 401k / 403b and an equivalent into more liquid savings.
I hope this helps.
As an aside, a plan similar to the above meant that when I was laid off and the unemployment and severance ended after a year (yeah, I know I was lucky), we were able to take the mid term savings (Vanguard) and use it to pay off the mortgage. Of course we had been saving for like 15 years and paying the mortgage for like 15 years.
no subject
The idea of making that sort of elaborate spreadsheet is appealing. I should look into playing with something similar sometime. And yes, I recognize the idea of using laziness to prevent frivolous purchases, though in all honesty, every week or two I'd probably be putting an item in my spreadsheet that was just "20$ cash from the ATM to spend on an pan and toy dinosaurs"
Household expenses is one I didn't think of, especially in terms of cleaning supplies and things like toiletries and paper products and stuff. Some of that will have to involve roomie negotiation, and it occurs to me that there will probably be other things in the "group expenses" pile, like getting a house Netflix account or whatever
I completely forgot about taxes when I wrote fn2. I suppose it would be more accurate to say "I need to be making at least 24k/year post-taxes". Luckily the numbers for being a first year teacher (again, assuming I actually get a job doing so) look to be in the 37-45k range, depending on which part of Boston/Cambridge/Brookline/Watertown/etc I get a job in. So I should be okay, once I have a job.
Yeah, I have not been thinking about the apartment thing. Part of it is that mum has said I can reclaim my childhood furniture if I want, though that leads to moving hassles. I think I plan on buying as good a bed as I can afford (because the Sims influences my life) and Craigslisting like crazy until I get a dresser and desk/4x8 with filing cabinets. Oh, and _shelves_. Shelves are crucial to my continued happiness, even if I have to make them out of cinderblock and scrap wood.
(I also need to talk to ThirdBase and see if she still has spare kitchen supplies, and if so, see if I can steal them.)
I do my best to ask for advice when dealing with stuff I don't have a great handle on. I know damn well that I don't have a great handle on money --I think I'm clever enough and organized enough not to find myself in debt, or having to make stupid sacrifices (like, do I get clean clothes or food this week) but I grew up in a relatively well-off household, and I know my brain carries over impulse patterns from shopping with mom that I can't afford to regularly use when shopping on my own.
(This is not to say my mother is bad with money, she's absolutely not. But we could afford to indulge in eye-level impulse buys (especially at the supermarket), and so that's sometimes a thing I am used to.)
~Sor
no subject
And then I track /everything/ to make sure I'm coming in under budget enough. At this point the 'tracking everything' is mostly reflexive behavior, although it'll be handy with the Major Living Situation Shift in a couple of months.
A good bed is a happy thing. And there is nothing whatsoever wrong with blocks-and-boards shelving! Except that it gets unstable if it gets too high. But it's easy to move, which is a huge point in its favor.
I suspect that if you can wrangle one of them 37-45K jobs, a bit of impulse shopping at the grocery store will go over well with your roommates. :)
(My contribution to 'what should i know for apartment living?' mostly consists of reading the comments and remembering how hell was other roommates. Not because they were bad people, just because I desperately require my own space, and often don't have the energy to make common areas part of my space.)