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Old 08-31-2010, 05:38 AM
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disneysteve disneysteve is offline
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My post count, and the caveat I placed in the op, I had hoped would be sufficient to ward off any pee pee measuring contests, or statements which would normally cause me to fold up my kit and head yonder.
My apologies, Boogaloo. My point in posting my own numbers wasn't to boast or compare. What I was trying to get at was to question if the 4K monthly expense figure you gave was truly accurate because if you earn 10K/month and only spend 4K/month, you should have more than 80K saved so something was missing from the story. You answered that question here:
Quote:
The $4k/mo. nut, is bare minimum. There is at least another $1500-$2000 in discretionary spending on toys and fun, and general "care free" Americanism.
That makes more sense now since it takes the 48K in spending up to 72K (or possibly more). If 30% of the 120K goes to taxes, your take home is about 84K. If you are spending at least 72K, that leaves 12K for saving which is 10% of gross.

One common rule of thumb that you will often read here is the 50-30-20 plan. That is 50% of income for needs, 30% for wants and 20% for savings. From that savings portion, 15% to retirement and 5% to other needs. As alluded to earlier, in your case getting a later start in the saving game, it would be great if you could tweak that to put more than 20% to savings.
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