I made a few different budgets for myself. The first one is if I live my life to the fullest, eat out every meal, etc. The second is if I live pretty frugally, don’t go on trips often, eat out on a few times a week. Then there’s a third which is sort of a balance between these 2. My TC currently is around $370-390k but obviously that will drop greatly in a couple years once my initial RSU grant is over. Any advice on what I should change about my budget or which I would go with? Also what’s your expenses look like? Numbers are rounded for simplicity
Why bother doing this? Anyone can write down numbers. You should be averaging actually for each category you spend
This is a post vaccination budget so I don’t have any numbers since I spent the only year of my post college life inside
No frugal budget has shows or small trips, nor quarterly big trips. Maybe once a year, twice for the baller budget
Relatively frugal I guess. Basically not spending as much as one can
Invest 15% of your income and have six months' worth of expenses in your emergency fund. The rest doesn't matter (assuming you have no debt)
This. DCA.
What is weekends and how is it different from food/shopping/shows?
If I order out on a weekday, I usually don’t spend more than $10-15 for a meal but if I’m going out to eat on a weekend, it could be $20-30+, plus Uber, and all that. Shows and shopping don’t have to be on weekends since I’ve done both during weekdays so I kept it separate
I would include location to give more idea about the rent and other stuff, I guess you are not in Bay Area as it’s hard to live without car here. If you are then getting car would save you more money than Uber
SF is easy to live without a car. I live in the city
It's good you want to budget. You need to make it more sincere. There is a google sheets annual budget template. It has a long list of line items to break down expenses to the granular level. Many of those will not apply to you. But it'll make you think and come to a more educated guess. Taxes are the single largest expense for most people. You don't seem to mention taxes. Every serious budget considers taxes as an expense. Same for various types of insurance. It makes sense to adjust your automatic tax deduction to be optimal to prevent surprises or shocks at the time of taxes.
This is for post tax expenses.
What shows do you go to? So you don't have a car? What about utilities? (Gas, electricity, internet, cable, water, trash, insurance..).
Concerts, sporting events, live performances and stuff like that. No car and rent includes all that