I graduated college in May, and I started my first full-time job in July. I’ve been paying much more attention to my finances since I’ve started having both real income and real expenses for the first time in my life. Since the new year I’ve been tracking all of my expenses to try to generate an accurate budget for myself -- see where I’m currently spending my money and assess how I want to be spending my money and adjust my habits accordingly. Here’s where I’m at right now:
Demographics
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Age: 23
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Marital Status: Single
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Location: Major metropolitan US city
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Credit Score (via CreditKarma): TransUnion: 758, Equifax: 760. Details
Goals
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Work towards being debt-free while considering them “negative investments.” Meet at least minimum payments every month, but contribute more when eliminating negative interest from debt outweighs the potential positive gain I could get through investing
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Meet Roth IRA, 401k, and HSA maximum contributions
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I have some longer term goals that include saving for a house and future children’s education, but they’re a little further out and not really actionable just yet
Income
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Full-time job: $68,680/year; After taxes and contributions this turns into biweekly paychecks of $1,611.98, or $3223.96/mo. This is at a large company and I am 100% confident that my job is secure for at least the next year. I am generally confident further out than that as well but, hey, ya never know.
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Lyft driving: Variable but about $25/hour pre-tax, after I account for gas and value loss due to wear and tear on my car. Roughly $500/mo pre-tax but obviously depends entirely how much I drive in a given month.
Expenses
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These are figures that I generated by assessing my spending for the past two months - my current spending habits. I am going to adjust my spending and my budget based on where I think I can easily cut down. None of these numbers are set in stone, nor should they be considered a model for others.
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In January I spent $1200. In February I spent $2822 (which includes a splurge weekend and a bi-yearly car insurance payment). On average I expect to spend $2394, so these two months seem within reasonable month-to-month variability to me.
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My rent, internet, and electricity are being split with my roommate. These figures are what I pay after the split.
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My EZPass cost is so high because I am currently driving to work and paying a $5 toll per day. I tend to pay this in a lump sum of $300ish so I’ll have several months with $0 for that. I currently save 30 minutes in the morning by driving vs taking the train ($2.40/day). I am happily paying an extra $2.60 a day to sleep an extra half hour. Next year sometime my role will change and I will be able to take a free shuttle to and from work without as much time lost, so this cost will go down in the future.
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I listed Electricity in Irregular because the variability is extremely high. One month we paid $10 per person, another we paid $90. We do pay on a regular monthly basis, but because it’s not really a regular number that I can definitely count on being consistent, I consider it irregular. My other regular expenditures have no variability. Part of the reason it is so variable is I live in an old building with extremely bad insulation and windows out into an alley that I’d rather not open. This is something we are considering about staying in this apartment for next year.
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Speaking of my apartment, our rent is going up from $2,195 total to $2,300 next year, $1,150 per person, which would get me to 47% of my expenses are rent. I’m not exactly thrilled about that and there are other potential advantages to switching apartments, so that might help.
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My car insurance is a twice a year payment of $437 so 10 months of the year will be $0 here
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I try to follow /r/churning for advice about how to maximize spending utility in the form of credit card rewards. I want to take about 3-4 flights a year for travel and I think the best way to accomplish this cheaply is responsibly managing travel rewards credit cards. I am extremely careful not to overdo this, because I know mismanaging it slightly can have major repercussions. I am currently just using one card at a time to make sure I can handle it without screwing it up.
Debts
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My three student loans are through Nelnet, and I am paying them off with a credit card to get extra bonuses for cheaper flights in this coming year. I am thinking of these as negative investments. So if I have $1000 extra in a month that I want to somehow save, if I think I can make a 6% return in some investment, that should outweigh the 4.66% return I would get by investing in paying off my debt. More about my investing philosophies below.
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My “car loan” is money that I owe my dad for various things, the bulk of which is $4000 from purchasing his car. This is a 0% loan and he doesn't really want monthly payments from me right now. He would rather me meet my retirement savings goals before paying him back. He trusts me to pay him back eventually, but developing a solid base of long-term savings is more important to him and to me. I know how big of a gift this is, and it’s the biggest reason I started tracking my expenses. The better I understand my spending, the better I can understand how to meet my savings goals sooner, and the sooner I can pay my dad back.
Investments
Long-Term Investments
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I am currently in the process of changing my T. Rowe Price account to a Vanguard account. This is almost exclusively to lower the fees on these accounts, which are the majority of my long-term savings.
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I want to be more diligent about correlated investing. I know some of my holdings are correlated, but I'm not quite sure how best to go about it. For some reason having 75% of my money in a 2060 Target Fund seems like too easy of an answer. I saw this post with a map of Vanguard funds and am thinking of focusing on VTIAX, VDADX, VEXAX, VFIAX, and a target fund. Is this a decent distribution? Trying to balance dividend yield with tracking the market as a whole and low fees.
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My bitcoin investment is mostly a just-for-fun investment. I appreciate the volatility of Bitcoin but it’s an interesting idea and since its inception the currency has been an extremely good investment. If I lose all of that money, it’s not the end of the world. Plus I can purchase Bitcoin with a credit card to manufacture spending if I have to.
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I am contributing the maximum to my HSA, $3,400 per year including $1,000 from my employer. I know you’re “supposed to” contribute to 401k before HSA but I think there’s a psychological advantage to maxing at least one of these accounts asap.
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I have about $1800 left to contribute to my 2016 Roth IRA. I am planning on making that payment once my switch to Vanguard goes through, and meet the 2017 contribution limit by December.
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I am contributing to my 401k at 5%, with a company match of 100% of the first 4%. I am fully vetted. This amounts to $8,241.74 per year after the match, well short of the $18,000 yearly limit. I view this as my largest area for improvement. After I meet my Roth IRA maximum contributions I am going to move up to at least 10% contribution to get closer to that $18,000 limit.
Short-Term Investments
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I'm investing in individual stocks using an app called Divy, which lets you invest in fractional shares, as low as $10 of a stock with low commissions.
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Full disclosure - a friend of mine works at Divy, but I am not trying to promote their product. I am simply trying to get advice on if this is best way for me to be investing in my current situation. Since my friend works there he got me into the beta version, which was commission-free. I am wary of this coming off as an advertisement, so if this an issue I can remove this portion of my post, but I view it as relevant to my financial situation.
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I'm currently doing well narrowly beating the market since I started in April, and moreover I enjoy it. I got into stocks a few years ago and now with more time and money to save I have been paying very close attention to the markets lately.
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Fractional shares allows me to be well-diversified with only ~$2000. I'm in 27 different securities, but balanced well across all of them despite a large variance in share price.
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The money is virtually liquid in this account - it takes about a day to transfer to and from the app so I consider this basically a portion of my emergency fund. I am comfortable taking on that risk at this point in my career, and I think I understand the drawbacks of a taxable account. This is an area where I am seeking the most advice because I think I'm balancing risk appropriately but I'm not positive.
Checking Account
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~$5,700 in three different banks
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This is about 2.5x my average monthly expenses. I am trying to be lean enough with the amount in my checking account without taking on undue risk in what is admittedly a low emergency fund buffer.
TL;DR
Is my investment strategy appropriate for my situation? Am I balancing retirement, short-term savings, and debt repayment appropriately?
Any feedback at all on the way I'm handling my finances is greatly appreciated
Thanks!
Submitted March 02, 2017 at 11:01AM by sheeeeeeeeeets http://ift.tt/2li662l
