In this post I write about how I spent my paycheck between Needs, Wants and Savings.
Every month in 2020, I have been summarizing how I spent my paycheck between my Needs, Wants and Savings. I have a high percentage of Fixed costs due to my mortgage, and my goal has been to increase my income so the percentage lowers.
The 50/30/20 rule budget is a simple way to budget that doesn’t involve detailed budgeting categories. Instead, you spend 50% of your after-tax pay on needs, 30% on wants, and 20% on savings or paying off debt. I use a variation of this as you see below.
As such, I have now increased my income through selling on FB Marketplace and counting interest Fixed costs to be 41% of my paycheck (vs 47% in May and 55% in April and 56% in March).
- Note:
Take Home Pay in June includes
- 8-5 work paycheck,
- Interest income,
- Items sold on FB marketplace.
It does not include:
- Annual bonus paid in June,
- Dividends (reinvested).
Expenses filtered by what percentage of total take home pay it represents.
Needs , 41%:
- Mortgage 29% of paycheck ( continues to be 23% of gross)
- Car payment and insurance are the next highest at 5% of paycheck
- Utilities, 4%.
- Groceries were 3%
- Donation to my local church 0.5%
Wants, 14%
- Health & Fitness, 4% gym charged me this month and I’m working on getting it reversed since I haven’t gone. I started seeing a therapist for accountability this month as well,
- Braces for my Daughter (NEW) , 2%
- Family Cell (parents and me) 2% – the cell itself isn’t a want, but the unlimited plan we have is, and me paying for my parents is.
- Shopping, 0% sold my dining room table & a west elm spool side table, no shopping for me!
- Eating out, 3% had takeout and celebrated a lot this month for my daughter’s birthday
- Gardener, 1%
- Learning, 1% bought 2 courses this month to learn how to flip electronics since I’m always looking for a side hustle and supported another DFC member with another purchase. All of May and June I worked on my own learning course, and it is out now! If your goal is to increase your Instagram followers, check it out here while it’s still $25 vs $50 original price.
Savings 45%
- Savings in LIMBO – 18% figuring out what to do with this money. so far it’s in a Real Estate sinking fund (like a savings treatment).
- Index Funds 12%, invested in index funds as usual
- NEW – added my first REIT into the portfolio. This is my first non index fund stock, 6%
- Extra to my mortgage, 10%
- Roth 2019, 0%- Finally maxed that out.
