Hi, I'm Boorpoy.

I currently have no debt, have an emergency fund, and I'm renting. I live in in an area where the houses cost about 500k-700k on average.

I am currently attempting to live on a third of my take home pay, which happens to be very easy since I live like a college student and I have a "grown-up" salary. I also put 15% of my gross pay into retirement investments with a combination of 401k and Roth IRA.

That means I have a chunk of money leftover to do whatever I want, roughly 50% of my take home pay. The problem is, I'm investing about 11% of it for something in the future (downpayment for house?) and I'm saving 89% of it for "Large Purchases". It's always saddening to track my net worth because I hardly make any traction, so much of my savings are spent on stuff, albeit awesome stuff.

I don't regret buying the awesome things, but I should probably invest a greater proportion of my discretionary money.

My goals are:

1) Save up 2000 more and buy a PS3 and a car with my savings. UPDATE: PS3 bought, car on hold
2) Ramp up investment to 75% of discretionary spending. UPDATE: Budget wasn't that realistic, modified.

I'm not setting deadlines because there are so many unexpected expenses in my life, especially now that I'm moving soon and we need a new couch.

Rather then not set a deadline at all, I'd recommend you set two deadlines. A "best case" deadline, and a "worst case" deadline. You're certainly correct about the unexpected expenses in life, however we should also consider the unexpected income as well. If something major happens you can always adjust your deadlines, but it does give you a goal to shoot for. I once heard "A goal is just a dream with a deadline" so providing some sort of flexible time frame may produce better results then no time frame at all. Consider the time line a personal challenge, not a "must do or else".

The ability to be content with what you have, rather than buying new things, is a key to building wealth.

Most 'awesome things' you are buying are worth nothing in 3-5 years (PS2 for example). I'd rather save a dollar today so that in the future I can buy as many Playstations as I want.

Well, yes but by then I won't care as much about a Playstation 3. Besides, the Playstation 2 has been selling extremely strong (stronger than the PS3 currently) 8 years later. Playstations have very long tails. I can always be content with what I have, and I am, but if we were always content with what we had we would never buy things or replacements for things we didn't already own.

The awesome things I buy last for many many years and provide lots of enjoyment, that's why I don't regret them.

As for goals, I'll set the 2k goal for 2 months (end of July) and converting to investment heavy savings for August.

You may want to check out my journal, it sounds like we are in very similar situations.

http://www.getrichslowly.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1571

Very cool, thanks for sharing your info. I always wonder how I stack up to other people my age.

You have some very low monthly expenses there, my monthly budget looks like this:



The reason my eating out budget is so high is because I travel a lot for work. I'm going to try lowering it a bit by eating at cheaper places and bringing a bagel with me from home to take care of breakfast. You mentioned people who have their paychecks already spent before they get them, I actually fit that description since my paychecks go to pay off my credit card in full and the rest goes to savings/investments.

I eat out quite a bit too, simply because I work long hours and don't generally take the time to pack a lunch.

I also work with a lot of people who go out to lunch daily, so really, it's a good way to get away from the office and network with co-workers as well. Generally, lunch is around 5-8 bucks, sometimes more. Sometimes life gets so busy that it's very worth it.

Mid June update:

Unexpected expenses: Since we are moving in a few months, we bought the washer/dryer off the current residents of our new place. That's 150 for both, not a bad deal. Then we also need a microwave since our new place doesn't have one, we were able to get the nicest microwave we've ever had for $20 on craigslist.

PS3 bought, I got the Metal Gear Solid 4 bundle.

Paycheck goes toward paying off my credit card bill, so no savings for the rest of the month.

In July I will most likely meet my $2000 savings goal to pay my PS3 balance on my credit card (I always pay off my balance at the end of every month), which means $1500 goes toward my car fund ($9500 total). But how could I do that if I only save 1500 a month? Well, I also have some reimbursements from this month that will be coming to me in the next few weeks ($564), I will be getting $250 from my credit card cash back program, and $600 from the stimulus. Break it down:



I should be able to switch over to heavy investment mode in August.

Apparently I miscalculated my savings... lets do it with more real numbers this time:



A few things changed. I bought an extra controller for my PS3 so my girlfriend could play with me ($60), I bought a Nintendo DS game that I've been waiting for for years ($50), and I bought a downloadable game for my PS3 ($10). I guess you could call all these things, awesome things... which are exactly what I am struggling not to buy!

But... they are awesome, and I do not regret buying them. Is that a problem?

I've also stopped calculating my July expenses with July expenses, since I pay those in August (CC). Instead, I just count my CC bill and Rent as expenses for a month. With all this money going towards my large purchases fund, I'll meet my 10k goal and start heavily investing the rest of my discretionary money in August.

Do this:

1) Look around for those "awesome" things everywhere (craigslist, amazon, ebay, pricegrabber.com, sams club) before buying retail.

2) Try to hold of purchases as long as possible. You are paying for purchasing excitement. kmull is right, most of the items that are retail won't be worth much in a couple of years. I can buy all the Command and Conquer games now for $50 but I have spent nearly $500 on them over the past ten years. I am not saying you should always hold off on all purchases but you should generally hold off on a lot of them especially digitalized entertainment items.

3) Play the crap out of what you own. Now that you own that DS game, play it too death!!! Also, instead of watching TV (more stuff you don't need) or checking out internet ads, play as much PS3 with your GF as possible. Make a rule that you will beat a game at least once or watch a movie twice before buying another one.

4) Check out old entertainment! I love old games and just don't have the time to invest 40 hours just to "learn" how to play a new game. Old games, movies, and music costs much less than new stuff.

I would consider myself a very savvy shopper, I definitely research and get the best price. I do hold off on buying things, much longer than the "1 day per $100" rule. I don't have a problem with buying used, however I generally have a rule against buying big ticket electronics used. The same goes with new games. If a game is very popular, it will not show up used for a low price on craigslist or ebay, usually only 5-10 dollars cheaper and quite a few months later. I've been waiting for this particular DS game for about 3 years now, ever since I lost the prequel.

I definitely do play the crap out of everything I own, I don't have to worry about that. I have 420+ hours on Orange Box, the last computer game (set) I purchased. The DS game I bought (Final Fantasy Tactics A2) promises 200+ hours of gameplay. And I play the PS3 with my gf everyday to de-stress her and get some entertaining activity together that tests our communication and teamwork... and we don't have cable/satellite, so our TV watching is 1 hour max watching the Daily Show and Colbert Report on Hulu.

How old are you?

By the way, you didn't respond to my "buying older games and media."

Also, never buy a CD or DVD new. I am sorry but you are flat out WASTING your money. I have never bought a used game, DVD, or CD that did not work: never!!! I guess I just don't get as excited about new media anymore.

I even waited two weeks before going to see Iron Man. I didn't want to spend the money because recent movies have had horrible content. Iron Man helped to redeem my view of hollywood a bit.

What do you do for a living?

I'm about 24.

All the DVDs I own are gifts, I use Netflix. There really aren't too many movies in the past 5 years that are worth seeing twice, imo. If I do go see a movie, I see it matinee or with 7.50 anytime discount tickets that I can buy through Borders Rewards... Iron Man was the last movie I saw in the theaters.

I used to buy lots of CDs because I like to support the artists. These days I've cut back, but I definitely buy used whenever I can.

When it comes to games I'm highly anticipating, I often find that it isn't worth it to wait until they show up in the used market since they are not marked down enough. Since the games I buy have very high resale value, they're usually only about 5-10 dollars less. For example, the next few games I'm highly anticipating are Fallout 3, Spore, and Final Fantasy XIII. All of these are AAA titles that will sell at about 10 dollars less at most about 6 months after they come out. They're like Toyotas, except they depreciate even less.

I work on making things delightful to use for a living.

You may want to check out this website:

http://www.swapadvd.com/index.php

You post the DVDs you no longer have use for and send them to people who request them. You will build credits this way and then you can request different (even new DVDs) and people will send them to you. I picked up Smallville season 6, etc.

The only cost is media shipping (roughly $2-3) which is cheap!

Eventually, they will have a section to swap video games. You will be able to post your old ones that you have beat and request ones you want.

One great thing these days is how many artists are allowing customers to pay what they want... a great example is Girl Talk... he finished the album a couple of weeks ago and it's downloadable as a pay what you want structure. If you pay $5 you also get the entire album as one giant track (if you are familiar w/ him, it's how his music SHOULD be experienceds). And if you pay $10, you get an actual copy in September (when it comes out in stores!)

Do you live in a relatively bustling city? I very rarely buy CDs (if I don't download them/get them from friends I borrow them from the library) but I try to see lots of live music (most bands cost between $8-20 to see). In my opinion, that is how to make sure (w/ music) that you're spending $$ on experiences and not things. You'll always remember a fantastic live show! I spent $250 on going to Sasquatch (a big music festival in the NW) this spring and I still remember every wonderful minute...