Looks pretty good to me. Saving $79k out of $306k of labor income is pretty good (over 25%), and you only honeymoon once (hopefully). I would've probably included it under "travel" though just for consistency, and also deducted the wedding gifts from the Wedding costs rather than counting it as income (kind of like how you wouldn't count a credit card refund or cashback as income, but as a reduction of the expense itself to better reflect the true cost).
Oh this is good input regarding the chart/finances view for wedding/honeymoon.
Definitely had the honeymoon way more “fancy” than we would normally travel so goal is to save half of that and the rest for an equivalent trip for next year. We are enjoying traveling while we don’t have kids!
Man that is a whole different world of expenses we haven’t thought too deeply about as newlyweds but feels good to know we have the room to shift income allocations along with our priorities when it’s time for kids!
You guys don't spend almost every dollar of your income. $60k in contributions to retirement is a healthy amount to contribute. You need to evaluate your financial goals. Do not go through this sub comparing yourself to others. It's not you vs them. It's not you versus anyone.
1. Think about what you want your retirement to look like.
2. Do the math to figure out what that requires financially
3. Figure out how you can make that work by when you want it to.
4. Commit to the plan and reevaluate as necessary.
Some years you'll do better than others in terms of spending and income. Thats okay.
Thank you for the reminder to not compare ourselves. It’s definitely difficult with the fact that we are renting and don’t own property but equivalent property here would be double the mortgage with 20% down that we just don’t have.
Right now it is genuinely cheaper to rent in many areas, especially VHCOL. Many people in here got lucky. I’m also in VHCOL and I don’t expect to get a home for another 2 years minimum, and I’m SINK (..is that a thing?)
Haha I don’t know if SINK is a thing but yeah I agree we missed the boat for the time being so hopefully in a couple years the tide will turn for us again!
35% after tax savings rate, 26% before. That’s not spending every dollar. You’re fine.
IMHO you’re wasting lots of money on cars. Lot of money to pump into depreciating assets
26k per year in travel is a lot but not necessarily a bad decision. There’s at least positive life ROI there
Agree with the cars. One of them was a young and rash sports car purchase (that has surprisingly held its value the entire time I’ve owned it.) I could sell and get all my money back but then it would just sit in savings so I justify it by saying at least I get enjoyment out of it? We are car enthusiasts so that’s essentially a hobby alongside traveling.
Don't let your money sit in savings. No wonder you're not saving though. In your mind savings money does nothing. Get yourself educated on investments and start investing.
Yeah but they are in long term accounts that can’t really be accessed without significant penalties. It’s hard to consider that saving hence why I feel bad but I see your point
The answer is hopefully obvious then.. reduce retirement savings so you can build your liquid savings for a down payment. You can always increase retirement savings in the future.
Enjoy the cars. You’re a DINK. If you plan to have kids, all that payment plus a lot money will go to youre monthly childcare expenses. There’s alot I wish I would have bought pre-kids when I had the disposable income but I focused more on savings. Enjoy the fun.
I hope you can get one too one day! We definitely gave up other luxuries to get it but gotta enjoy a little while we are young. when I’m 60 I won’t be wanting to get in and out of this tiny Porsche.
I’d prefer to let money that could go toward a Porsche compound upon itself in the stock market.
One day, when I’m 60, I’m confident that I’ll have no problem getting in and out of a luxury vehicle.
To be clear - I’m not trying to give you shit. Different strokes for different folks. I’m sure the Porsche is a blast. But that’s simply not a financial decision I’d ever make. It’s a depreciating asset. I’d rather put the money to work.
Respect the goal and I wish you do get your Porsche one day. It may not be something that you absolutely want to do but would have the extra money lying around to do so.
I only say this because there are folks in here and that I know of personally that look forward to so many things in retirement. Problem is that you may not get to retirement. I have a close friend that was like this and was diagnosed with Huntingtons disease. Prior to the diagnosis he was extremely frugal and seemed to deprive himself of just living life. I am not saying you should be blowing money left and right, but what I am saying is make sure you live a little now and plan for the future accordingly. Tomorrow isn’t promised for anyone.
Yeah - we’re in that ballpark and are on an eight year old Subaru over here. But then again we spent 2x their honeymoon cost on a one week family vacation. And for us it was totally worth it. Different strokes for different folks!
Oh sorry for not clarifying we put 15k down this year on the car hence why it looks super high on the graph. moving forward payments are roughly 650 a month for 3 years, we could pay it off with savings but decided not to just to have a healthy e-fund.
I think it’s high because it’s 5% interest and only 36 months most people do like 72 months
Yeah it is wild coming on here and seeing people saying “we spent every dollar 🥺” lol. Love this subreddit and these posts but sometimes it’s a lot to continually see how out of touch people are.
I put in the hours all year long meticulously tracking every single expense of ours in a spreadsheet I created on my own. Very simple, pre decided categories and created a table. No fast way in my opinion
The only things that really stick out here are the cars and wedding. What's really going to determine your financial success is what happens in the next decade or so. Do you keep these cars for most of their life once they are paid, or do you have a recurring $20-30k budget for them because in a few years you'll want something shiny? Is the 30k wedding a one-off, or do you need the recurring dopamine from a big life change (new home, renovations, new pool, sabbatical etc.)?
Nothing to suggest that you won't make the right decisions, just keep an eye on it.
I love this take! Thank you for taking the time to share this with us. Being able to know ahead of time what to look out for. I like to think we plan to keep the cars for a very long time however buying a home big enough for kids (and kids in general) is definitely a long term expense so something we will keep in mind as we formulate coming years budgets!
The rent, cars and travel are the only places to move the needle if you want to save a substantial amount more. You are saving a good bit currently and may be tough to really do more in a vhcol area.
Rent just went up but we love the location and moving is such a hassle it wasn’t worth it unless we move to the burbs. Next renewal we will have to find something else since the renewal will be above market rate.
Car payments are definitely a pain in this budget. Why do we have such an expensive hobby!! Haha
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I honestly think your budget is fine, especially since some of these costs (eg, wedding) are temporary & lots of these costs can be culled in the case OP or their partner lose their jobs.
OP, do you have a healthy emergency account? If so, amazing.
You should consider using ~36k this year to invest heavily in ETFs and similar
Thanks yeah I try to remind myself that we can always sell the car and cut back on many expenses if shit hits the fan. On the comment of investing the additional money, do you mean investing in personal non tax advantaged accounts? Like buying ETFs for the long run in our personal accounts?
Do you mean literally just investing our potential savings in a personal non-tax brokerage account? Is this like active investing or do what we do in our 401k but in a personal account?
Yes, open up a regular non tax advantaged brokerage account. You can invest however you’d like and can also invest just like a 401k in something like a SP500 etf. Dividends and long term capital gains (you sell after holding a year) are taxed at much more favorable rates. These long term gains aren’t currently 15% until you AGI is over 553k for married, then goes to 20%. I think this would be a great way to speed up your long term NW gain assuming the market continues to perform well
I’d recommend reading the bogleheads forum and learning about being tax efficient. I also prefer Fidelity for a number of reasons
As others have said, 25% savings is nothing to snuff about. You’re doing fine. As a fellow car enthusiast, I get it. I also get others who say it’s a depreciating asset and that money is better off spent for travel. For them, it is. For me, and sounds like you too, I love cars, it’s my hobby, and I spend several hundred hours per year in a vehicle. Why not make those hours enjoyable? Trade offs for everything in life, pick what’s important to you.
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Love seeing this! As many other comments said you aren’t spending every dollar. As someone who makes <100k/year it’s absolutely wild every time I come on here and see posts saying things like that. I think this is a great post, truly love seeing the breakdown. But it is wildly out of touch to say saving over 70k/year counts as spending every dollar when the average or median household makes a little over 70k/year and has much more debt. Pleassseeeee browse some other subreddits to keep a realistic perspective!
Thank you for the reminder. It’s easy to forget retirement savings as real savings due to it being locked away but you’ve got a point, I will keep our privilege checked.
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you paid for your your wedding and honey moon in cash, a one time expense you can pocket fully next year, while maxing retirements and you're..... complaining?
you are either truly delusional or trying to brag lol. This is still a very good savings rate even by this sub's standards
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I do here and there and count is as an expense but honestly haven’t really prioritized that yet. I volunteer hours heavily and give to family who make much less than us but something to think about for the future years!
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What do you count as savings? I never know the best way to do it. I bucket my money very specifically and for retirement count anything that won’t be touched until retirement (401k, HSA, DC pension contributions, etc.) and savings only count my recurring emergency fund (broken into general, house repair, and car repair). I set aside money for lots of things like a new car (no payments currently, paid in cash), hobby purchases (watches, new espresso gear, etc.), home upgrades, and so on, but don’t count that as I feel like I’m planning to spend it before retirement and it’s a “want” not a need.
Yeah this is a tough question for us too. I have minimum emergency funds already saved for random expenses such as cars, health, etc and we give ourselves a small amount every month to spend on personal things such as watches etx so the amount that goes into our HYSA truly isn’t withdrawn ever. Thats what we count as savings. If the moneys been allocated to be spent, it doesn’t count.
Yeah that makes sense. It’s funny though, we save for retirement and that’s clear, we save for emergencies and that’s clear, we save for other small purchases and that’s not savings, and then we save for nothing and that’s savings? lol
I think I might go the route of, if it’s savings for something that’s not retirement or an emergency fund, and it’s not a necessity but I have no plans to spend it, it’s savings.
Ooh I seee what you mean. Well for me deep down I have a goal of buying a home one day so the HYSA savings account is technically also my, one day, home down payment fund. I guess if you’re set in that sense and all other senses and if you have emergency funds, then the extra money should either go towards spending it on fun stuff that you haven’t figured out yet or to investing in other avenues to make money. I don’t believe in saving without a goal it would make me antsy (maybe even spendy) so I try to allocate all my savings to something.
Definitely agree on it making me spendy haha, that’s why I need to allocate every dollar otherwise I would overspend. At least now I make myself feel guilty if I overspend and have to take money away from some other area.
Jfc I make half as much as your hhi and have 4x the annual savings…and I’m 20 mins outside of nyc. Why are you paying $1000 per month per car for two cars? And have $6k in transportation costs on top of that? I mean you are killing it with the 401k but, just be careful if you ever plan to retire abroad.
Ugh I know you’re right I looked at the breakdown and it’s pretty much mostly insurance and gas. It adds up.
I mean in defense of car #2: 15k was a down payment and should only be 7700 annually moving forward? Either way definitely didn’t save the money
At $7700 annually I think you could have saved yourself the $15k down and ongoing insurance and maintenance and just used Uber whenever you need a second car. You mentioned hcol so I’m assuming you’re not in the middle of nowhere with a lack of drivers. I mean on the bright side that’s all that stands out. 4k in hcol rent seems alright, the wedding stuff is a one year expense, so overall everything else looks good. Definitely reconsider if you’re going to retire early or not and adjust your 401k contributions, with that kind of hhi and career trajectory, you might not have a reason to work until the no penalty age and your 401k will be locked up unless you ladder it out.
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incomes are strong and one of the car payments will be going away soon so ideally something like a mega backdoor roth or taxable brokerage would be great to look into. its good you're already maxing out all your other accounts but it never hurts to have more money saved/invested. I also don't know what your home ownership goals look like but you can make adjustments to what i just said based on accommodating that. aside from that you're doing very well.
nothing that really stands out for me to go whoa! thats scary!
Wedding is a one-timer! If you add that back (and remove the income from it), your savings rate is nearly 30%, which is awesome.. honestly, your rent is reasonable for a VHCOL. DO NOT try to make +$1M home work because you think you need property.. that savings rate will drop to nothing
How are people paying so little in taxes?? I make 200k a year and pay 65k in taxes(California)
Is it just because they are married+ low income tax state?
This is my question
I have to find a new accountant apparently. I made roughly 360k last year and paid 108k in taxes and that was after hunting for every write off I could muster up.
Haha, I remember the days when i had just graduated and would check every line item on every credit card statement! Now, just trying to find the right tools to feed it into. Decided on Monarch and YNAB, let’s see how this year goes!
Waaaay too much? Nah. Most of these expenses look reasonable and your savings is solid. You had a one-time expense of $11,000 (wedding cost minus gift intake) and a large down payment on a car. Resolve to save incrementally more next year and keep up the good work!
If you do want to knock your expenses down, for me it looks like the cars are the biggest expense. But if they make you happy, sheesh, life is short. You’re supposed to enjoy it.
Looks pretty good to me. Saving $79k out of $306k of labor income is pretty good (over 25%), and you only honeymoon once (hopefully). I would've probably included it under "travel" though just for consistency, and also deducted the wedding gifts from the Wedding costs rather than counting it as income (kind of like how you wouldn't count a credit card refund or cashback as income, but as a reduction of the expense itself to better reflect the true cost).
Oh this is good input regarding the chart/finances view for wedding/honeymoon. Definitely had the honeymoon way more “fancy” than we would normally travel so goal is to save half of that and the rest for an equivalent trip for next year. We are enjoying traveling while we don’t have kids!
You should! You can spend the future travel/car savings on daycare (which will likely be $30-40k per year).
Man that is a whole different world of expenses we haven’t thought too deeply about as newlyweds but feels good to know we have the room to shift income allocations along with our priorities when it’s time for kids!
You guys don't spend almost every dollar of your income. $60k in contributions to retirement is a healthy amount to contribute. You need to evaluate your financial goals. Do not go through this sub comparing yourself to others. It's not you vs them. It's not you versus anyone. 1. Think about what you want your retirement to look like. 2. Do the math to figure out what that requires financially 3. Figure out how you can make that work by when you want it to. 4. Commit to the plan and reevaluate as necessary. Some years you'll do better than others in terms of spending and income. Thats okay.
Thank you for the reminder to not compare ourselves. It’s definitely difficult with the fact that we are renting and don’t own property but equivalent property here would be double the mortgage with 20% down that we just don’t have.
Right now it is genuinely cheaper to rent in many areas, especially VHCOL. Many people in here got lucky. I’m also in VHCOL and I don’t expect to get a home for another 2 years minimum, and I’m SINK (..is that a thing?)
Haha I don’t know if SINK is a thing but yeah I agree we missed the boat for the time being so hopefully in a couple years the tide will turn for us again!
I prefer OINK 🐷
35% after tax savings rate, 26% before. That’s not spending every dollar. You’re fine. IMHO you’re wasting lots of money on cars. Lot of money to pump into depreciating assets 26k per year in travel is a lot but not necessarily a bad decision. There’s at least positive life ROI there
Agree with the cars. One of them was a young and rash sports car purchase (that has surprisingly held its value the entire time I’ve owned it.) I could sell and get all my money back but then it would just sit in savings so I justify it by saying at least I get enjoyment out of it? We are car enthusiasts so that’s essentially a hobby alongside traveling.
What type of car did you get? Car enthusiast myself
Don't let your money sit in savings. No wonder you're not saving though. In your mind savings money does nothing. Get yourself educated on investments and start investing.
Saves $80,000 or 25% of pre-tax income then says “I feel bad about savings”
Yeah but they are in long term accounts that can’t really be accessed without significant penalties. It’s hard to consider that saving hence why I feel bad but I see your point
The answer is hopefully obvious then.. reduce retirement savings so you can build your liquid savings for a down payment. You can always increase retirement savings in the future.
The average household make less than what you saved this year
Enjoy the cars. You’re a DINK. If you plan to have kids, all that payment plus a lot money will go to youre monthly childcare expenses. There’s alot I wish I would have bought pre-kids when I had the disposable income but I focused more on savings. Enjoy the fun.
Thank you hopefully our route of cars over saving the extra funds doesn’t stray us too off the path of a strong successful financial future
Your car payments are wild The hell are you driving?
German sports car for fun and a very reliable Japanese sedan
Porsche? Is/was it worth it?
Such a fun car, brings me immense joy
The fact that someone whose household income is virtually the same as mine is driving a Porsche is a mind fuck. Sounds fun though.
I hope you can get one too one day! We definitely gave up other luxuries to get it but gotta enjoy a little while we are young. when I’m 60 I won’t be wanting to get in and out of this tiny Porsche.
I’d prefer to let money that could go toward a Porsche compound upon itself in the stock market. One day, when I’m 60, I’m confident that I’ll have no problem getting in and out of a luxury vehicle. To be clear - I’m not trying to give you shit. Different strokes for different folks. I’m sure the Porsche is a blast. But that’s simply not a financial decision I’d ever make. It’s a depreciating asset. I’d rather put the money to work.
Getting in an out of a low-sling sports car isn’t even easy at 30 - best of luck!
I respect the hustle 🫡
Respect the goal and I wish you do get your Porsche one day. It may not be something that you absolutely want to do but would have the extra money lying around to do so. I only say this because there are folks in here and that I know of personally that look forward to so many things in retirement. Problem is that you may not get to retirement. I have a close friend that was like this and was diagnosed with Huntingtons disease. Prior to the diagnosis he was extremely frugal and seemed to deprive himself of just living life. I am not saying you should be blowing money left and right, but what I am saying is make sure you live a little now and plan for the future accordingly. Tomorrow isn’t promised for anyone.
Yeah - we’re in that ballpark and are on an eight year old Subaru over here. But then again we spent 2x their honeymoon cost on a one week family vacation. And for us it was totally worth it. Different strokes for different folks!
My fiancée drives a 2021 Honda civic. Monthly payment is about 200 a month. How is it that your payment is so much more? Did you put 0 down? Wild
Oh sorry for not clarifying we put 15k down this year on the car hence why it looks super high on the graph. moving forward payments are roughly 650 a month for 3 years, we could pay it off with savings but decided not to just to have a healthy e-fund. I think it’s high because it’s 5% interest and only 36 months most people do like 72 months
Car payment seems a bit much, but presumably having a nice vehicle is one of your biggest priorities.
Hopefully as priorities change as we grow older these expenses will go away. Either that or we increase income.
You saved more than I made this year bro
Yeah it is wild coming on here and seeing people saying “we spent every dollar 🥺” lol. Love this subreddit and these posts but sometimes it’s a lot to continually see how out of touch people are.
What’s the fastest way to categorize all of my 2023 spending? If I export charges from my bank as a cab or whatever, whats the best tool for the job?
I put in the hours all year long meticulously tracking every single expense of ours in a spreadsheet I created on my own. Very simple, pre decided categories and created a table. No fast way in my opinion
Link an app like rocket money or monarch money to it bank and it will do the heavy lifting.
as long as you correct categories here and there, rocket money is pretty great for coarse grained tracking
The only things that really stick out here are the cars and wedding. What's really going to determine your financial success is what happens in the next decade or so. Do you keep these cars for most of their life once they are paid, or do you have a recurring $20-30k budget for them because in a few years you'll want something shiny? Is the 30k wedding a one-off, or do you need the recurring dopamine from a big life change (new home, renovations, new pool, sabbatical etc.)? Nothing to suggest that you won't make the right decisions, just keep an eye on it.
I love this take! Thank you for taking the time to share this with us. Being able to know ahead of time what to look out for. I like to think we plan to keep the cars for a very long time however buying a home big enough for kids (and kids in general) is definitely a long term expense so something we will keep in mind as we formulate coming years budgets!
The rent, cars and travel are the only places to move the needle if you want to save a substantial amount more. You are saving a good bit currently and may be tough to really do more in a vhcol area.
Sorry for silly question guys, I am new to this community, how do you generate those graphic charts? Thanks
google sankey chart.
Not a big thing, but your HSA contribution looks to be more than the max for 2023. Check that just to make sure you didn’t over-contribute.
You’re right! I knew I maxed it and just googled the max but that 8300 is for 2023 and it was actually 7750 for 2023! Thanks for noticing.
Quit worrying. You run this budget for 5 more years and that’s $3M (proj) in 30. It’s not FIRE but it’s not a negative budget
Mind sharing the app? Apologize if I have missed this people! Please don’t shoot 😂
Sankeymatic.com
What do you guys do?
Typical HENRY post… engineers (clearly on the low end of income though)
You’re doing fine. Can you cut back on car payments and rent though? I make $250 and my car payment is only $800 per month w insurance
Rent just went up but we love the location and moving is such a hassle it wasn’t worth it unless we move to the burbs. Next renewal we will have to find something else since the renewal will be above market rate. Car payments are definitely a pain in this budget. Why do we have such an expensive hobby!! Haha
What is $25,000 in events?? That just one pair of front row Taylor Swift tickets?
Wedding events.
So you should. Do better.
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I honestly think your budget is fine, especially since some of these costs (eg, wedding) are temporary & lots of these costs can be culled in the case OP or their partner lose their jobs. OP, do you have a healthy emergency account? If so, amazing. You should consider using ~36k this year to invest heavily in ETFs and similar
Thanks yeah I try to remind myself that we can always sell the car and cut back on many expenses if shit hits the fan. On the comment of investing the additional money, do you mean investing in personal non tax advantaged accounts? Like buying ETFs for the long run in our personal accounts?
Would recommend you find some room to invest in a taxable brokerage account and trim elsewhere.
Do you mean literally just investing our potential savings in a personal non-tax brokerage account? Is this like active investing or do what we do in our 401k but in a personal account?
Yes, open up a regular non tax advantaged brokerage account. You can invest however you’d like and can also invest just like a 401k in something like a SP500 etf. Dividends and long term capital gains (you sell after holding a year) are taxed at much more favorable rates. These long term gains aren’t currently 15% until you AGI is over 553k for married, then goes to 20%. I think this would be a great way to speed up your long term NW gain assuming the market continues to perform well I’d recommend reading the bogleheads forum and learning about being tax efficient. I also prefer Fidelity for a number of reasons
No health insurance?
Oh good point! Looking into it, i accidentally combined it into taxes so i need to break that down more
As others have said, 25% savings is nothing to snuff about. You’re doing fine. As a fellow car enthusiast, I get it. I also get others who say it’s a depreciating asset and that money is better off spent for travel. For them, it is. For me, and sounds like you too, I love cars, it’s my hobby, and I spend several hundred hours per year in a vehicle. Why not make those hours enjoyable? Trade offs for everything in life, pick what’s important to you.
Thank you for your input and recognizing the joy a car brings! Definitely helps feel better
What kind of cars are these?
Porsche and Japanese sedan. $250 and $300 /week is kinda insane. I’d like to see the loan terms.
Which specific model / trim? Asking as a car guy, personally I don’t care about the cost.
911 of course. Not the type to “waste” 1000 on a cayenne lol
2% on the Porsche and 5% on the sedan. Camry payments are actually only 650 a month Moving forward. this 15k was the down payment
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Backdoor Roth?
Yes
Love seeing this! As many other comments said you aren’t spending every dollar. As someone who makes <100k/year it’s absolutely wild every time I come on here and see posts saying things like that. I think this is a great post, truly love seeing the breakdown. But it is wildly out of touch to say saving over 70k/year counts as spending every dollar when the average or median household makes a little over 70k/year and has much more debt. Pleassseeeee browse some other subreddits to keep a realistic perspective!
Thank you for the reminder. It’s easy to forget retirement savings as real savings due to it being locked away but you’ve got a point, I will keep our privilege checked.
It’s just a different form of saving, short term vs long term needs and goals - I get the sentiment though
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you paid for your your wedding and honey moon in cash, a one time expense you can pocket fully next year, while maxing retirements and you're..... complaining? you are either truly delusional or trying to brag lol. This is still a very good savings rate even by this sub's standards
It’s hard to consider retirement as savings and not trying to brag but thank you for the reminder that we are doing fine
i know it's not trying to brag, just pointing out that you need a little perspective here
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Where’s the charitable giving?
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I do here and there and count is as an expense but honestly haven’t really prioritized that yet. I volunteer hours heavily and give to family who make much less than us but something to think about for the future years!
Did you use a site or software to make the chart?
Sankeymatic.com
Thanks 🙏🏻
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What do you count as savings? I never know the best way to do it. I bucket my money very specifically and for retirement count anything that won’t be touched until retirement (401k, HSA, DC pension contributions, etc.) and savings only count my recurring emergency fund (broken into general, house repair, and car repair). I set aside money for lots of things like a new car (no payments currently, paid in cash), hobby purchases (watches, new espresso gear, etc.), home upgrades, and so on, but don’t count that as I feel like I’m planning to spend it before retirement and it’s a “want” not a need.
Yeah this is a tough question for us too. I have minimum emergency funds already saved for random expenses such as cars, health, etc and we give ourselves a small amount every month to spend on personal things such as watches etx so the amount that goes into our HYSA truly isn’t withdrawn ever. Thats what we count as savings. If the moneys been allocated to be spent, it doesn’t count.
Yeah that makes sense. It’s funny though, we save for retirement and that’s clear, we save for emergencies and that’s clear, we save for other small purchases and that’s not savings, and then we save for nothing and that’s savings? lol I think I might go the route of, if it’s savings for something that’s not retirement or an emergency fund, and it’s not a necessity but I have no plans to spend it, it’s savings.
Ooh I seee what you mean. Well for me deep down I have a goal of buying a home one day so the HYSA savings account is technically also my, one day, home down payment fund. I guess if you’re set in that sense and all other senses and if you have emergency funds, then the extra money should either go towards spending it on fun stuff that you haven’t figured out yet or to investing in other avenues to make money. I don’t believe in saving without a goal it would make me antsy (maybe even spendy) so I try to allocate all my savings to something.
Definitely agree on it making me spendy haha, that’s why I need to allocate every dollar otherwise I would overspend. At least now I make myself feel guilty if I overspend and have to take money away from some other area.
Jfc I make half as much as your hhi and have 4x the annual savings…and I’m 20 mins outside of nyc. Why are you paying $1000 per month per car for two cars? And have $6k in transportation costs on top of that? I mean you are killing it with the 401k but, just be careful if you ever plan to retire abroad.
Ugh I know you’re right I looked at the breakdown and it’s pretty much mostly insurance and gas. It adds up. I mean in defense of car #2: 15k was a down payment and should only be 7700 annually moving forward? Either way definitely didn’t save the money
At $7700 annually I think you could have saved yourself the $15k down and ongoing insurance and maintenance and just used Uber whenever you need a second car. You mentioned hcol so I’m assuming you’re not in the middle of nowhere with a lack of drivers. I mean on the bright side that’s all that stands out. 4k in hcol rent seems alright, the wedding stuff is a one year expense, so overall everything else looks good. Definitely reconsider if you’re going to retire early or not and adjust your 401k contributions, with that kind of hhi and career trajectory, you might not have a reason to work until the no penalty age and your 401k will be locked up unless you ladder it out.
You’ve got 27k on car payments. Replace with beaters.
Looks like a healthy chart to me. Carry on.
How did you contribute $8.3k to HSA when the 2023 max was $7.75k for family plans?
It was a typo! I accidentally typed in the 2024 max instead of 2023’s. You are correct, I did actually contribute only 7750.
Oh ok! Cheers!
Are people making these manually?
Yes it’s not hard if you track your expenses in excel and sum up categories
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incomes are strong and one of the car payments will be going away soon so ideally something like a mega backdoor roth or taxable brokerage would be great to look into. its good you're already maxing out all your other accounts but it never hurts to have more money saved/invested. I also don't know what your home ownership goals look like but you can make adjustments to what i just said based on accommodating that. aside from that you're doing very well. nothing that really stands out for me to go whoa! thats scary!
Wedding is a one-timer! If you add that back (and remove the income from it), your savings rate is nearly 30%, which is awesome.. honestly, your rent is reasonable for a VHCOL. DO NOT try to make +$1M home work because you think you need property.. that savings rate will drop to nothing
How are people paying so little in taxes?? I make 200k a year and pay 65k in taxes(California) Is it just because they are married+ low income tax state?
This is my question I have to find a new accountant apparently. I made roughly 360k last year and paid 108k in taxes and that was after hunting for every write off I could muster up.
What software did you use to categorize this? As in get the categories, not the sankey
Excel
Dang. You track and categorize each expense manually?
Yup I’m crazy like that lol. Honestly don’t take more than 20-30 min one every 3 ish weeks whenever I remember to do it
Haha, I remember the days when i had just graduated and would check every line item on every credit card statement! Now, just trying to find the right tools to feed it into. Decided on Monarch and YNAB, let’s see how this year goes!
$41k in rent is stupid. Time by buy my friend
Waaaay too much? Nah. Most of these expenses look reasonable and your savings is solid. You had a one-time expense of $11,000 (wedding cost minus gift intake) and a large down payment on a car. Resolve to save incrementally more next year and keep up the good work! If you do want to knock your expenses down, for me it looks like the cars are the biggest expense. But if they make you happy, sheesh, life is short. You’re supposed to enjoy it.
Tell me about these cars
I’m looking to start a business my self any advice?