How do you actually manage your money?
Do you follow a budget? How? How do you save? How do you keep yourself from spending too much? Do you use credit cards? Do you use the same bank account for everything?
I am a young (American) adult just trying to get all my finances straight. Any advice is appreciated.
Use excell to keep up with your finances
Make a savings account for rainy days
That's all? Seems simple enough.
What if I want to buy a boat or travel? How do I pay for it? Just be frugal for a while and use any built up income?
You dont buy a boat or travel. Youre too stupid to figure out how much you make vs how much you spend on necessities so anything like that is well out of your range
Sorry your IQ is too low to ever even imagine earning enough to have disposable income. I'm just curious and looking for honest advice from my fellow 125+ IQ people. good luck with your miserable poor life fricking wagey
Kek I paid more in taxes last year than you made the last 2, and I did it by not being such a mongoloid moron that I could research financial basics. You literally cannot fathom disposable income because you dont even understand your income
What dont you understand? Certainly you understand what a budget is right? And that to create one you have to figure how much money you will get? If you literally do not understand the basics required to create a budget or not spend money then go to Google and start there.
Mainly I save by not moving out of this cheap studio apartment I'm renting.
I don't eat out or go out for coffee or whatever; only rarely do I go out for an aimless walk or bike ride. So I save the money that other people my age would spend on night clubs or beer or such.
I don't date, which saves a good chunk of change according to the NY Post. ( https://nypost.com/2019/09/12/heres-how-much-money-the-average-american-spends-on-dating/ )
In lieu of toilet paper/paper towels, I use old newspapers and paper scraps. I don't purchase milk, coffee, tea, or hot drinks of any kind, not even as ingredients to prepare at home. This also spares me the expense of purchasing sugar or sweeteners.
I cook and eat everything in the same pot, which I only wash occasionally. This saves on dishwashing detergent (one bottle can last me months or years), but I rather do this in the interest of saving time.
Obviously, I buy the cheapest foods I find on sale in the supermarket.
I'm a britbong but my advice is not much different
First I start off with my net income post tax, pension, student loans.
Then I subtract the costs for rent, bills and more fricking taxes (council tax)
The rest of the money I have left is what I need to live and plan off of. I will put maybe 20-30% in an savings account for emergencies. Once I get to a certain number (like £5k or £10k) I can then drop that percentage quite a bit and invest in an ISA (I think it's the British equivalent to a Roth IRA)
I aim to spend like £200 max on food, and less than that on travel to work. I have pets so I need to take care of them as well. The rest of the money is free for me to spend and its guilt-free
I put all my spending on an Amex because I might as well get points for spending money that I was going to spend on a current/checking account anyways. I don't really do big spends that I can't afford on credit cards, I'd rather make myself pay monthly instalments to myself to a secondary savings account and save up the money for big purchases in 12 months.
>ISA (I think it's the British equivalent to a Roth IRA)
You can withdraw from an ISA tax-free any time, Roth IRAs have a penalty if you withdraw before 59.5.
A SIPP is basically exactly a 401(k) though.
If you're asking about the details, I break down spending into
>Rent
>Supermarket
>Utilities
>Finance/Insurance
>Health/self-care
>Leisure
Two things I've found out trying different systems:
- Broad categories are better than fine ones. Breaking things down further doesn't really give you extra information and is more effort
- Tracking is better than budgeting ahead. There's no way to budget without tracking anyway, and if you track you know where money is going and can easily "just spend less" on a category if you need to.
Savings are for an emergency fund (3-6 months base expenses) and for planned larger purchases if they need saving for.
Also a bong like this guy so details different, but then I save and invest in tax-efficient ways.
>Save in "Premium Bonds" for tax-free interest
>SIPP (Bong 401k) up to company match
>Maxx ISA
>Then go to a general investment account
Not really. I put like 10% into 401k (i get 8% match) and then as much as I can into company stock so I don't get taxed on it. I spend around 3k a month on rent, I cook all my own meals (all organic meats, fruits, and vegetables), I own my own car, my only big expenses are trips, I do 5 or 6 a year. Even still I have hundreds of thousands in an HSA getting 5% interest annually. But most of my money is in stock.
Am I the only non-brokie here?
>hundreds of thousands in an HSA
what the frick? why?
I pay for everything with a credit card and instantly pay it off right afterwards to build credit and earn cash back. My spending habits are frugal enough that I don't need to budget extremely closely even though I'd probably save more money that way. I just work as often as I can and pay my bills and sit on the money otherwise. I invest in index funds for long term, whether it's in my personal brokerages or my Roth IRA. I try not to eat out too much both for money and health purposes so I just keep myself in check that way. I save up for travel when I can and I can afford to pay for myself and my girl on trips but we aren't extravagant or anything. I also get a bit of help from school in terms of aid/loans which helps out but I'm not planning on paying it off all that fast, I'd rather invest my money than pay off my loans ASAP. I use the same checking for everything right now and have 2 basic credit cards, my main one and a travel one. If my income were more consistent I'd set up regular deposits into brokerages to buy investments every month and then save a bit more in my bank to either make important purchases or buy certificates of deposit while rates are still high
When I budget, I first factor in essential bills. These are housing, utilities, food, and health insurance. Food and utilities are variable costs, but you should live in a way that you never exceed your budgeted amount and live far below your means. Then, we take less-essential bills and factor that in. Those would be your retirement account, investments, savings accounts, and a car loan (if you have one). As much money as possible should go into these. After that, the money that is left over is for completely non-essential bills like going out to eat, subscription services, and "fun" money. If you're doing this right, your financial picture will look something like this.
>35% essential bills
>55% less-essential bills
>10% non-essential bills
My shit is easy. I keep track of everything in my imagination and round all my math to the safe side and try to hold back ten percent for I’ll know why when I know. Also, save max for retirement, ASAP. It is fun to grow moneys.
>no usury (credit cards, loans, etc.)
>no speculation (stonks, investments)
>literally zero debt
>live within my means
>pay bills first and in full
>pay for everything I can in cash, Monero, precious metals, barter or favors
>the only action my debit card ever gets is at the ATM
>my insurance deductible is set aside and in a safe place
Congratulations, you've found a way to decrease your moneys value as inflation eats away at it
yes goy, you're safe with israeli banking
instead of worrying how much to spend just don't spend unless you absolutely need to. bam, ez.
>How do you actually manage your money?
I use a tool (pic) linked to all my accounts to track spending, budgeting, and saving
>How do you save? How do you keep yourself from spending too much?
I'm highly motivated to retire as early as possible, so I save / invest as much as I can in 401ks, IRAs, 529s, CDs, HYSAs, MM funds.
>Do you use credit cards?
Yes. Some cards can be pretty useful depends on your spending. My cards cost $200 in annual fees, but I get $600+ in cash back--mostly from groceries / gas. For a young single person who doesn't travel, fee cards likely doesn't make sense, but it's good to have a few accounts open and pay your full statement balance off every month to build a good credit history.
>Do you follow a budget?
I have a rough idea of what my typical monthly expenses should be if I'm not doing excessive discretionary spending, so I try to stay close to that number
>Do you use the same bank account for everything?
I try to have auto-pay setup for all bills from one main checking account if I can't auto-pay from a credit card (which is then auto-paid from the main checking)
The personalfinance subreddit is really useful for this kind of stuff and has more tailored advice depending on your age group