No Clue What to Do. Help

[riverwed070707]

Originally Posted by hokies2688

No it's fine no worries.

Income: 3300/month
Rent and utilites: 1000
Gas: 150
Breakfast/Lunch work cafeteria: 50
Other Food: 150
Weekends/Alcohol/Going out/Random Expenses: 300
Gym/Supplements: 50

I think that's pretty tight if I may say so myself. That leaves me with $1600 invest...

So you don't have car insurance? Don't have a cell phone? You don't buy gifts or go shopping or take vacations? On paper it looks tight, but I have a hard time believing this reflects your actual spending. When did you graduate? If you have an excess of $1600/mo, why do you only have $2000 in savings? If this is really what you're living off of, that's great -- then by the time you start school you should have $60k in savings assuming no raises or bonuses between now and then, which is a fantastic start toward your bigger goal.

[hokies2688]

Parents take care of car insurance and my phone for now. It probably won't last that much longer but I'll take it while they do. Graduated in May. Used my bonus for my graduation trip to Europe. I haven't taken time off to travel yet because I just started but I definitely will soon.

[riverwed070707]

What I was getting at is if you do those things you should be budgeting for them. You need to budget how much you can reasonably expect to put away for savings, not just plan to save what you don't spend.

Also, with that kind of excess, you should really consider increasing your retirement. You may be maxing what your employer matches, but your far from reaching the contribution limit. You should be contributing no less than 15% of your *gross* income between those two accounts.

[Shewillbemine]

Investing in stocks should be a long-term financial tactic, not a short-term, get rich quick scheme. Unless you want to be a day trader and die of a heart attack at such an early age, I'd advise against stocks if you're looking for something for only a couple of years.

If you plan to use most/all your savings to pay for B-school, then I would not use retirement accounts. Just use a money market account or even simple savings. You won't realize enough gains in the next few years to make a significant dent.

The bigger picture here is your desire to get into a Top 10 B-school. As a 23 year old, you are about 7-10 years shy from the AVERAGE years of business experience to be a competitive applicant at Harvard, Stanford and UPenn. The average MBA student is 30 years old and has close to a decade of full-time, real world, business experience. Your GMAT score will also be valuable so you'll need to study for that exam.

As someone who once considered an MBA and thought against it (I didn't want to take on any more debt coming out of college), be sure you're going back to school for all the right reasons. An MBA can help break glass ceilings for you esp. if you're applying for positions that require such a degree. On the other hand, never treat it like a golden ticket that will help you pay off whatever debts you incur--ask the thousands of MBA grads in unemployment right now who can't afford to pay the massive debts they're responsible for (same with lawyers, doctors, and grad students). For every successful orthopedic surgeon who is finally digging himself out of debt, there are dozens of grad school graduates who are mired in school debt.