60K is more than enough to live comfortably, especially if you are single if you don't piss through money. The problem is that a lot of americans are financially illiterate and want to live beyond their means.
Let's just say for argument's sake that you make 60k.
After uncle sam takes about 25% of your income through taxes you will make approximately
44.5K
Divide this by 12 to get approx
3700 dollars a month.
The first rule of financing is that your housing should not exceed 30% of your income.
Its not a hardfast rule but its the ideal MAX limit. This is often where the first problem shows up with people who are disgusted at the idea of
an apartment or
a starter home because they believe they should start off in a two story quarter million dollar home in a nice suburban neighborhood when they know damn well they can't afford the mortgage not even taking into account property taxes, utilities, repairs, etc.
This allows you
1110 a month to spend for rent/mortgage. There are plenty of cheap housing options as long as you shop around and live within your means. I just searched online and I found a really nice one bedroom apartment for 600-700 with ammenities like 24 hour small gym, free cable, free playground if you got kiddies and a ton of other bells and whistles. There are even a really nice 3 bedroom 2 bathroom houses to rent for 900.
I'm currently renting a nice apartment with a single roommate for a little over 300 a person. Its not the fanciest but its a relatively decent apartment with low crime where we have a lot of people living here as permanent residents. It can look like an expensive $1000 apartment if you get good furniture to furnish it too. Lets just say for arguments sake you want to go buck wild and blow it all on rent.
That leaves you
2600
Most financial advisors recommend that you spend 10-15% of your income for transportation and car payments. Lets just say you still wanna ball at 18% because
YOLO/$WAG/STUNNA 3OO/MAK3 IT RA1N B1TCH3S. That leaves you with 666 dollars. You should probably be spending about 200 for gas unless you do a ton of traveling and drive a hummer. That leaves you with about 466 for car payments and insurance(Lets estimate 150 b/c you drive like shyt so your insurance views you as a risk) if you bought a car. (
Buy USED, cars are one the the fastest depreciating assets on Earth. They drop 1/3 in value as soon as you drive it off the lot)
If you own your car because you were smart enough to buy used and pay it off in a timely fashion, you're saving HUNDREDS each month.
This will give you $
1934 bucks left.
You should be spending a max of 15% on food. Lets just assume you want to use all of it. That leaves you 555 a month on food. I don't spend nowhere near this much but lets just say you're a growing boy who hates buying store brand food because you're a bougie fukkboi. You spend 300 for groceries for yourself and 255 eating out constantly at swanky restuarants.
This leaves you with
1379 left. OH NOES, despite the fact that you just got your rent, food and transportation taken care of, your only have over a grand left.
OH NO!!! We forgot to add in utilities. No problem, at 5% you should spend about 185 bucks for your utilities. This leaves...
1194 for your remaining expenses. Can we even make it?
60K is impossible to live off, I KNOW ITS TRUE!!
You should allocate 5% of your expenses to healthcare which means about 185 bucks but with rising healthcare cost, this is a bit unrealistic now. Also lets say you want to get the cadillac healthcare plan too with full prescription coverage, this will cost you an average around 370 dollars a month taking into account you are single and didn't knock anyone up in your teenage years.
You only have
824 left now. What we gonna do? We gotta save some of this shyt, we're about to run out of money...
If your in your 20's you should be saving about 10-15% in your twenties and about 15%-20% in your 30s. Let's say you're balling spree is over and you decide to get some sense and play it safe by putting away 15% of your income into savings. This will cost you 555 dollars a month.
Uh ohhhh.. You only have
269 dollars left.
We don't even have 300 left anymore....
nikka I need a drink!!! Take out a hundred and twenty out for going out/alcohol money!!! This stress is KILLING ME.
Which leaves you with
149 left over.
You forgot about the phone bill fakkit!!!! Its 90 dollars for me!!!
Alright, little homie, you have about
59 dollars leftover.
nikka I need internet too!!!
You can get a decent plan for 40-50 bucks.
Lets say you spend all 50, this gives you only
9 dollars left....
9 DOLLARS??? REALLY?
MIDRASH, YOU LIED TO US YOU FAKKIT ASS fukkBOI!!!! YOUR LIGHT IN THE ASS, ASS SAID IT WAS POSSIBLE TO LIVE COMFORTABLY OFF 60K!!!
Before you jump me let's review..
On
60K, I was not only about to keep the IRS off your back but I was able to get you a super expensive ass apartment/house for a bougie ass nikka, a good car plan, enough food to feed two people a month along with over $250 for restaurant eating, a top of the line healthcare plan, over a hundred a month just to get drunk/fukked up, a cell phone plan and internet so you can call grandma every now and then and still beat yo meat at night. You get to live pretty good too and this is like
WORST CASE SCENARIO spending.
You only have 9 bucks a month but at the end of the year you will be sitting pretty at around
6660K BEFORE INTEREST that will be pure
NET GAIN EQUITY.
Even if you do this for only a decade and you don't change anything, you will still earn around 66K before interest in money that's just sitting there where you don't owe anyone anything. Its not a reliable savings amount but its a hell of a lot better than living paycheck to paycheck.
There were obvious areas where you could subtract money from like going out, food expenses, healthcare, rent where you can easily squeeze about a good 600 a month without sacrificing much quality to blow on random shyt. That will help you buy clothes, pay for random stuff and donate to charity.
I know this was long as fukk but its not hard if you play your finances correctly. LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS!!! Nikkas out here trying to live like Kardashians when they know they can't afford that lifestyle.
Personal Finance is KING!!! They need to teach more of it in highschool.
I live in America breh. Tell me what kind of car you can drive for less than $300/month or where you can pay all household expenses (rent/mortgage, lights, gas, waer, etc) for less than $1450? Even if my mortgage was $900, gas/electric is ~$200, water is $100. It's not unreasonable to expect to pay aother $250 for random things that come up, like needting to buy something for the house or repairs etc. We're talking about families, not individuals. An individual could live well off 60k. And the bottom line is, no matter how you do the math, there is no way a family of four can live well, save for the future, and be able to handle the random financial emergencies on 60k. We're a country living on credit and bill juggling.
its all them dam illegal Mexican immigrants taking the $100,000 jobs brehs! Its destroying the black community!
