re: Married men , could you live by yourself on 35k a year?

I'm single and there ain't no way I could live on that and have any type of life.

My kid's nanny makes more than that per year. after tax dollars

Sorry for the late bump and long post but this thread really hit me because I was there at one point, living in New Orleans 6-8 years ago, post-grad school, under-employed non-profit consultant/employee. I had just got out of a very serious relationship and although under-employed was really happy. I knew at that income I would be paying student loans back for a long time and would never be able to retire, but I was single, and young. I went out on tons of dates (fellas, Saturday/Sunday brunch at a local neighborhood spot is inexpensive and I went to see a ton of live music). Honestly, I hooked up way more than I needed too, but oh well. These are all rough estimates as I was not this good budgeting back then:

Salary: approximately $35,000 (independent contractor)
Taxes: approximately $5000
Actual spendable income: $30,000 = $2,500/month

Budget (based on $2,500 monthly spending)

Rent - $850(half of small double but no roomates, in Uptown in good area) 850
utilities - $100 (monthly average)
internet/cable - $0 (paid for by owner of double)
Car Insurance - $80 (just liability)
Cell Phone - $100
Health Insurance - $130 (super healthy single male)
Food and groceries - $250 (just for home, not eating out)
Monthly incidentals/clothing average - $70
Cheap gym membership - $50 (rounding way up here but will keep at $50 since that’s what I would have paid at a decent gym
Gas - $100 (Had previously paid off 6 year old car, worked 2 miles from office and often biked, so gas was way lower but will keep it at 100 to account for oil changes and repairs when needed )
Saints Season Tickets - $70 (monthly average, split with friends)
Student Loans Payments - $200
(low payment but what I could afford)
Retirement Investments (IRA) - $100
Monthly Play Money - $100 (dates, concerts, rollover for travel, vacations, etc) 250
Emergency Savings - $100
Floating buffer to cover overages and sometimes credit card interest - $50 (extra goes to savings)

One last comment, this doesn’t work if you have big credit card debt.

quote:

---

Actual spendable income: $30,000 = $2,500/month

---

Thats about $500 too high. Your take home is actually around 2,000 a month

So now you are in the negatives

No, he just barely scrapped by and had $100 of play money. That's a big difference from what some other have been claiming.

I never said you can't live on it. Just that you can't live well. His numbers back my position up.

quote:

---

No, he just barely scrapped by and had $100 of play money. That's a big difference from what some other have been claiming.

---

He also over estimated his take home ot by about $500. So he really is losing $400 a month

quote:

---

working for a local nonprofit, so my take-home was actually the entire $35,000. I had to put aside money for taxes/SS which ended up being around $5,000 a year. Everything else I paid out of my montly budget.

---

I am saying someone actually making 35k in a company will take home 2000 a month. So can you see how your situation becomes that much more difficult. You lose only the $130 a month in health insurance out of your budget, while losing around 400 in take home

quote:

---

NOLALGD

---

Really??? I mean you took THIS much time to type this????

One car break down and your budget is destroyed. Your budget then wasn't comfortable. You apparently got lucky and never had a car break down or an injury, which is great. But dont act like it wasn't a possibility.

So many people are SLAVES to money... Sad...........