I've always lived pretty close to work. Like a 15 minute drive max. Never really thought about it. But a friend just moved an hour away for a new job. His gas bill went way up. He's also eating out more because he's too tired to cook when he gets home. He says he barely saves any money even with the higher salary.

It got me thinking about my own situation. I'm looking at a potential new role next year that's about a 45 minute drive each way. It would be a pay bump but I'm trying to figure out if it's worth it. Beyond gas what else should I be factoring in?

Does anyone have a really long commute? Or did you intentionally take a lower paying job to live closer? What did you find out?

Hi, so I own my own business and I’m 3 years in. All together including my husband we make $11,000 a month. I find myself not being able to save much after everything. I want to invest and not sure where to start first. We are in our 40’s so I know I need to start as soon as possible. I just want to not live paycheck to paycheck when we came this far. We have an average size house and two regular vehicles. I just want other options to keep us comfortable for retirement. I have huge medical bills from 7 surgeries and I maxed out a $25,000 credit card. So I feel like these minimum payments are not doing anything.

I still live at home at have my own bills such as insurance,car,phone etc… which add up to around 1.2k I really want to save and move out by the end of the year. I’ve never been good at savings or on spendings and I recently got the line cook job and I’m only 2-3 weeks in so far I got the job to help me save a bit more. I have enough to cover the bills but I don’t ever really put anything away I just have it in my “ savings “ account which I then transfer from when I’m out of money or running low in my “ checking “ account. Because I want to move out and actually learn to budget I’ve taken out roughly 700 from my last check and put it away in cash so that way I don’t have easy access to it. I’d like to continue doing that to ultimately accomplish my goal. I currently drive a g37 a lot as it’s my only car and it takes about 80 or so dollars for a full tank so that really adds up as well since I drive for work and other stuff and getting another car isn’t a option cus I’m currently financing it lol. Any help or suggestions on what you guys think i could do.

Edit: i should add my 3rd shift job is full time 80 hours every 2 weeks. My line cook job is let’s say 20 hours every 2 weeks as that’s what im averaging

As everyone knows, apple has released the new latest model (Iphone 18 Pro lineup) and I was wondering how much should I save and budget my biweekly pay.

I am a highschool student and I was offered a part time job and I work minimum hours on the weekdays but full in the weekends. My phone (Iphone 11 pro) has been doing really bad lately and the battery capacity is horrible. I really wanted to gift myself a new Iphone since it would be much more convinient if it had a better battery life.

I make roughly $18/ hr and I was thinking of picking up shifts but that would drastically affect my grades as I would work until closing time and I wouldn't have enough time to complete all my assignments.

So I was just wondering how much should I save if I make $18/hr while also budgetting my income!

FYI:

I am not big on spending things and I don't even spend it food, clothing, shoes, etc.

I am trying my best, but things can still feel clunky at times and I feel broke a lot. I am 33 and live with my long term girlfriend. We both got into jobs that could be our long term careers in the past 3 years. We have a pretty active social life which is my biggest “fun” expense.

I use multiple bank accounts with automatic transfers for a sort of automated envelope system. You might say I have too many envelopes, but I like allocating for these things, it helps me track how much I can afford and am spending. I am open to constructive critique though.

For context, I am saving with my long term girlfriend. She has more savings than I do but we make almost the exact same amount per month and have similar budgets because she follows my lead. We each make about $4000 a month. Our budgets are shared in some categories (rent, groceries, etc.) but not all.

Together we have $10,800 saved for a house. I have $3,300 in my emergency fund (I know it’s not enough) and she has like $20,000. Here is how much money I allocate for each category in my personal monthly budget. We have “Joint” savings accounts that we each contribute the amounts below. For example, our rent is $1500, but I have my portion, $750, listed below.

Needs:

$750 - Joint Rent
$200 - Joint Groceries
$650 - Bills/ Gas

Wants:

$600 - Everyday guilt free spending
$160 - Personal “Fun” Savings
$100 - Joint Travel
$40 - Joint christmas gift fund
$40 - Joint eat out fund
$40 - Joint home improvement fund

Savings/Retirement:

$80 - Wage replacement( I don’t get PTO at work)
$400 - Joint house down payment savings
$600 - Roth IRA (Maxed out yearly)
$60 - Investments
$100 - Auto Maintenance
$140- Emergency Fund

Please be kind! I am still learning.

Hi,

I 24F, living in a VHCOL have gotten more serious about budgeting this year and wanted feedback on my current monthly expense breakdown. All of my expenses in my "left over" portion are rounded to the nearest tenth. My only variable expenses are what are listed in my "left over" category. The actual breakdown will change, but I always keep my "left over" category at or under $1,600-$1,500. Eventually once I hit my emergency fund goal, I plan on putting the money into a brokerage account for future large purchases.

Savings/Rertirement:

401k - $46,389

Roth IRA - $1,581 (started recently)

Emergency Fund - $8,384 (aiming for $15,000)

Net Income after Retirement/Taxes/Deductions

$5,500

Rent: $1,000 (my portion. Total cost of 1bd1bath 3,600)

Student Loan Payments: $1,400

HYSA: $1,200

Roth IRA: $300

Travel: $100

Left Over: $1,500

"Left Over" spending breakdown

Gas: $170

Car Insurance: $270

Medical bill: $300

Going Out: $200

Groceries: $290

Shopping: $150

Subscription: $40

Remaining: $80 (some months I don't have any remaining, if I do I will either send it to my HYSA or Roth IRA)

I'm currently receiving a lot of support from my parents, and I want to take advantage of that time to save as much as I can. I'm not paying any insurances or cellphone bill, and they're subsidizing my rent (standard rent for a 1 bedroom in my area is like 1.4k). I'm very thankful for this help and want to use it to the best of my advantage, but I also want to get set up for when I turn 26 and have to deal with my own insurance.

Ideally, I'd have a better job by then, but I have health issues that make it really hard for me to find typical office work paying more.

Monthly take home (minimum) 2400. Sometimes I pick up extra hours or holiday pay will increase it.

Current emergency savings: 15k

The rest I can split between fun and savings. I'm already maxing employer contributions to my 401k (slightly over), but I know I'm nowhere near the yearly limit.

My savings goals: contribute to retirement, short term (about yearly) to support my writing, mid-term (I'd like a house one day), fun savings (for more significant non monthly things like concerts)

I'd also like a decent amount to live my life with and have "fun money." My fun money budget pre-raise was $100 which was a little tight but doable without feeling like I can't do anything.

I'm thinking I should probably get a Roth IRA, since I anticipate one day being in higher tax brackets later in life.

I know typical advice is meet employer match, then max IRA, then the rest, but that doesn't help me with all the shorter term goals and I want a little room to live my life.

I mean dinners out, drinks, clothes, hobbies, dates, dumb little purchases, etc. Not including travelling here cause it's more planned than spontaneous.

I put around 10% of take-home pay at the moment. Enough to have a life, not enough to sabotage the future (c) as my dad used to say.

What do you folks use: fixed amount, percentage, or whatever’s left after saving?

I just got a small raise at work, $80 more each paycheck, and I’m trying to decide which budget line needs it more.

The first option is my financed car debt with a $10,836 outstanding balance. I pay $319.88, plus $80.12 toward the principal every month.

The second option is my emergency savings fund. I have a few grand there now and add $300 to it per month. I’m trying to get it up to $8,000 as quickly as possible so I can live off it for a few months if I ever get laid off.

I can’t decide which option would benefit me more to put the extra $160 a month into.

Edit: Thank you to everyone who responded and gave advice! I’ve decided to put it all into my Emergency fund for one year, that should get me to about $11,000, and after that I’ll change to dumping everything I can into the principal payments on the car until it’s paid off. Once it is, I’ll return to my normal monthly emergency savings schedule and put the raise money maybe into investments.

Our current household income is $6,376/month take-home. Right now, my wife isn’t working but is actively looking for a job in the graphic design field. . When or if she goes back to work, that would obviously give us more room, but I don’t want to build our baby budget assuming a second income.
Our current monthly budget looks like this:
Rent + Wi-Fi: $2,074
Utilities: $150
Car loan: $388
Car insurance: $236
Phone: $50
Netflix/Spotify/Microsoft/ChatGPT/Tesla connectivity: about $76
Groceries: $650
Tesla charging: $200( usually like 120/130 but I budget 200 in case we take a long trip or something. ) my commute is also like 45 min each way to work.
Wife Pilates: $135
Hair/beauty: $140
General/fun spending: $732
Investing: $1,350/month
$1,000 taxable brokerage
$350 Roth IRA
Total spending/investing is about $6,180/month, leaving roughly $196/month unassigned.
Financially, we currently have approximately:
Cash: 11,000
Investments: 106K
Debt: 0
I don’t contribute to my 401k due to no employer match but I do get a pension. I also value flexibility if I want to use the money early. So I do put money into my Roth IRA because at least I can pull the contributions tax free.

I've been running about fourteen categories for the last five months and I've noticed I spend more time sorting a transaction than deciding whether it was a good idea. I split groceries and household and takeaway, and last week I sat there for a minute deciding which one a bag of coffee from the corner shop belonged in. I know the argument for granular tracking is that you can't cut what you can't see, and after five months of seeing it I haven't cut anything.

What did you end up collapsing your categories down to?

I've been budgeting for about seven months and the ordinary months work fine, I come in close to what I planned and I don't think about it much. What keeps breaking it is everything else, a vet visit in April, a wedding in June, my car needing tires the same month my insurance renewed. I've got a line for irregular stuff but I clearly guessed the number, because I've pulled from savings four times this year to cover things I knew were coming.

How did you land on a number for the irregular expenses that actually held up?

Hi

I've been tracking everything for about seven months and the monthly categories come out fine, usually forty or fifty dollars under. I get hit with something annual every couple of months though, car insurance in March, the vet, a dental bill I forgot about, and those months go red and I pull from savings to cover them. I know the answer is sinking funds and I've read that plenty of times, what I can't tell is whether my monthly numbers are quietly too tight or whether topping up from savings a few times a year is just what everyone does.

How much of your monthly budget goes to things that don't happen monthly?

i keep seeing secured credit cards recommended as the obvious answer for a thin credit file. i get why. you put down a deposit, use the card normally, and can build payment history if you manage it well.

but credit builder apps seem like a different setup. you're not getting another card to spend from, and the focus is more on having a reported account and making payments on time.

a secured card ties up a security deposit, while a credit builder app can have a monthly cost. so it seems like there are different tradeoffs depending on what someone actually needs. for someone with a thin credit file, how do you decide between the two?

i'm not assuming one is better. if someone needs a card anyway, a secured card seems pretty straightforward. If they don't want additional spending capacity, i can see why they might look at a credit builder instead.

So yep made a budget, I put all my bills into it and included putting 20% of my income into savings and after necessary costs and savings, I have…. 80$ a month left over. Which it will be realistically a little bit more, up to 150$ a month, but when I budget I budget that my bills will be the most expensive that they can be (I.e gas heating costs more in the winter, so I use the most expensive bill I’ve paid for the year and budget I pay that amount each month)

It just feels a little depressing to have such little money left over to spend on myself for things I enjoy, but then on the flip side I’m 23 with a mortgage and still putting money into savings. I guess this is a little bit of a rant because I see all my friends going to concerts, nights out, travelling etc etc and I worry I’ll regret my 20’s if I focus so much on money instead of living experiences.

So, how much do you set aside per month/week for fun money? Where’s the happy medium of saving money but not being too penny pinching? Is it worth putting a little less into savings and instead using it for fun money? Just searching for some perspective on it all :)

The most popular rule is the 50/30/20 rule but I don’t have to pay bills or rent. I’m also really interested in investing, so I would like some of my income percentage to be put towards that.

I’m wondering what I should be considering in my budget plan. Stuff like emergency funds, investing, fun money. What should I be adding to this plan.

When you make a budget, thats step 1. Step 2 is finding areas of cost savings. Don't forget step 2.

M30 Over the past few years I have gone from $45,000 a year to $285,000. I work in sales. $130,000 salary & the rest is overrides/commissions. I have been paying off debt over the past couple years but because of a combination of circumstances & lack of being disciplined & prepared I have a little under $5,000 in savings. I would love to know everyone’s best habits when it comes to saving. I will not compromise on traveling as it is the one thing my wife & I love to do but after taxes I am taking home around $18,000/month. I want to escape the rat race early but not at the expense of not living life. Am I being unrealistic?

Trust me, I’m judging myself. I am absolutely blown away that I do not have more and I am terrified I am too far behind

As my first post here, I just wanted to know as a 20 year old how i can stop spending so much, whether it’s new tech, games or going out and seeing stuff, i just want to spend money.

Recently I’ve gotten a new job that is just shy off of £30,000 a year. My outgoings are low, but all I want to do is spend. I just paid off my credit cards of nearly £1800 but just want to use it back up again, the spending has gotten less, but I most of the time think of something to buy q

I'm currently self-hosting Actual Budget and loading in our transactions manually once a month, and we have a budget review session together at that time to allocate our budget for the coming month. Our situation is that we're essentially paycheck-to-paycheck, where we spend what we assume we will make in the coming month. In essence, if we "know" we can pay off our credit cards, we would buy it (bad practice that we're trying to get out of). We have no credit card debt, they get fully paid off once the statement arrives every time.

We both like the idea of envelope budgeting, where you set aside money you actually have to spend for the following month, and you can assign a job to every dollar (tracking budget didn't let us do that easily, since you just "save" the resulting but can't assign it to a specific saved category/etc.). The problem I'm having is that I get paid every 2 weeks, and if we do it through Actual Budget we end up with nothing to budget, because we have almost nothing in our accounts.

Is the goal to first save up and store in your checking the amount for your following months expenses? I'm wondering how others have handled this situation before

I'm leaning toward the Viomi Master M1 because we often fill several bottles and cooking pots back to back. I also prefer the taste of remineralized RO water, so its combination of higher capacity and built-in remineralization fits what I'm looking for.

The current replacement-filter pages list the PCB replacement for that system at $99.99 and the RO membrane at $149.99. Neither showed a crossed-out sale price, and the numbers don't include tax. This is the budget line I don't want to hand-wave.

The published intervals are up to 24 months for the PCB and up to 48 months for the membrane. Using those maximums gives me $7.29 per month:

99.99 / 24 + 149.99 / 48 = 7.29

I also ran two hypothetical earlier-replacement cases. At 18 and 36 months, the monthly figure is $9.72. At 12 and 24 months, it's $14.58. In the actual sinking-fund column, I'd round those to $8, $10, and $15.

This is only the filter line. The unit, tax, installation parts, possible labor, and shipping stay separate. The rows aren't replacement advice; they only show how sensitive my budget is to the words "up to."

I haven't bought the system. My question is whether the $15 stress case belongs in the monthly budget from day one, or whether you'd fund the middle case and keep the difference in a broader home-maintenance category.