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Ask HN: What is the minimum yearly income to live in your twenties?
I'm a graduate student, and was running some calculations to see what kind of income I need to not worry about basic quality of life, and it came down to around 30k:
12k for rent
3k for food
5k for health insurance
1k for clothes
3k for transport(no car)
6 or so as a rainy day savings/frugal liesure
- smt88 8y agoWhat city and currency are these calculations for? Can you live with your parents? Why do you not consider paying taxes?
- chrisseaton 8y agoIn some places graduate student income is tax free.
- analog31 8y agoI'm not an accountant, but my understanding is that the tuition reimbursement is not taxed, but the stipend is. All I know is that I filed taxes on my graduate stipend 30 years ago. Hope I actually owed the tax that I paid. ;-)
- chrisseaton 8y agoMy full stipend recently was definitely not subject to income tax, and I then had a zero rate tax bracket on top of that for my supplementary income. I wonder if they should tax stipends but also increase them by the taxed amount, so people see they’re more realistic than they first look. But then you’d lose the zero rate bracket for the rest of your income.
- kochikame 8y agoDepends where you live
- LeoSolaris 8y agoThat's going to be very location dependent... mostly in the form of rent and utilities. Larger cities will have much higher rent rates than sleepy college towns. New York City, for instance, would roughly triple your rent budget. Most places in the US, you would be able to live on that budget, provided you could find public transportation. That's not as easy to do everywhere either. If you're looking at a fairly small locality, meaning your daily commute distance is only a few miles, you may want to look at a motorized bicycle. They are easy to keep in a small apartment, offer a higher degree of freedom than public transit, and are about comparable in total travel time.
- cm2012 8y agoYou can live in NY comfortably for 1500 a month rent.
- chrisseaton 8y ago30k... what? You don’t even give a currency. How do you expect anyone to engage with you when there’s zero context here?
- dimensi0nal 8y ago30,000 of the default currency.
- xenihn 8y ago30,000 kola nuts
- andrewprock 8y ago$1000 for clothes! $3000 for transport! I'm pretty sure a frugal grad student could push both down to $0.
- chrisseaton 8y agoI don’t think I spend a thousand dollars on clothes as a fully employed person.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoWhy so much on clothes? Buying new suits every month or something? Unless your clothes is faded and full of holes, you can usually live with the same clothes for a while.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pattle 8y agoUnlikely to get transport costs down to $0 unless they live within walking / cycling distance to work.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- maheart 8y agoNote: currency is AUD I have years worth of data, and in my opinion, if you already own the "basic stuff" (sofa, bed, fridge, TV, even car) and can split the costs of certain items (rent, gas/water/electricity, Internet), then you can "survive" in Melbourne, Australia (an expensive city) on ~$25k (approximately $24k after taxes because of how tax brackets are structured). This includes: rent (up to ~$220 week), car rego ($820/yr), 3rd-party car insurance, petrol ($30/week), Internet, mobile (1GB data), gym, groceries ($50/week). You could even eat out ~$50/week. $30k will give you breathing space.
- guessmyname 8y agoFlagged because you didn’t provide the current nor location.
- pizza 8y agoThat's not what flagging is for. Please don't complain that a submission is inappropriate. If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.
- adamzochowski 8y agoIt depends on what is your standard you want to accept, and where you live. The 'basic quality of life' means different things to different people. For example, 12k rental can be extravagant. At this amount probably you can have a whole private apartment, with an actual bedroom (not a studio). But room rentals should be cheaper. Look what student rentals ask for, or friendly professionals that need roommates. These could be way below $500/month, even in new york. Alternatively, do you have parents or siblings to live with and share the rental costs? Similarly, clothing is tricky, but people do with less than 1k. Some might not buy anything in a year. Buy quality over quantity, things that last. Be vigilant at avoiding spills, cleaning them quickly, know how to patch clothes, and dye them. Look for coupons, discounts, clearance, outlets, friends that have employee discounts. 3k for transport and without a car? How expensive are the busses + bicycle maintenance in the area? Most expensive monthly passes around the world are around $150/month. Be it new york or singapore. Also, many places let you transfer from metro to buses and vice versa on same ticket! The big thing here is that one has to trade time and schedule ventures out. Know which buses/subways are when, and knowing how long are transfers. Trips that are 15minute in car can become 1hour slogs if not timed right. 6k for rainy day -- the rainy day money is meant not to be spent unless you have to. There is no need to budget for it being spent every year. 5k health insurance -- demand universal health care, or bet you won't get sick, or get a job that covers this? --- In my earlier years I tried to do similar calculation and I got slightly below 10k for basics like roof over head and lack of malnutrition, and in my calculations found 20k to be comfortable enough to allow for independant living and icecream, and beer outing with friends once a month, a cinema twice a year. etc.
- austincheney 8y agoI spend about $15000 on mortgage plus taxes for my 2900sqft house. If I were living cheap I would buy a used trailer for $12k and find somewhere cheap to park it long term.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- keiferski 8y agoEntirely depends where you are. You could live a decent lifestyle (coffee daily, eat out 3-4 times/week, have your own studio apartment) in many European cities on $1,000 a month, total. At that point your yearly costs are maybe $15,000, given $3,000 for emergencies or random expenses.
- maceurt 8y ago$15,000, before or after taxes?
- keiferski 8y agoAfter.
- chatmasta 8y agoCitation please. In my experience, you might be able to get this far in a place like Beograd or Budapest... but even then it's going to be a stretch.
- keiferski 8y agoI've been living on this amount for the past 5 years in Belgrade, Wroclaw, Sarajevo, Prague, Odessa, etc. It's not that difficult, considering that the average local salary in somewhere like Belgrade is less than $500. As a data point: average local salary in Belgrade in 2017 was about $400 per month. Now, as a foreigner you're obviously going to not have access to local networks, family housing, etc. But you can easily find an Airbnb for ~$400 in the center. That leaves you with $600 a month for everything else - very, very doable. https://checkinprice.com/average-minimum-salary-belgrade-serbia/ https://checkinprice.com/average-minimum-salary-belgrade-ser...
- chatmasta 8y agoI lived in Belgrade for a month in Summer 2016. You're right it was pretty cheap, but I still think $1000 would be cutting it close. I think I spent $600 on an Airbnb for a month, and probably close to $400 going out / on food etc. But yeah... Belgrade is really cheap if you want to live affordably. I bought a steak for $3! The important thing to note is that for a foreigner it will definitely be more expensive. You're likely on a short-term lease, you need to travel home periodically, you don't know anyone in the country to get roommates, etc.
- paulcole 8y agoAs an undergrad I was living off of well under $5k a year when I was 21. Sharing a studio apartment in a college town with a friend, eating cheaply, etc. By the time I was 29 and living in a bigger city I was spending a fair amount of my $35,000 a year salary. My college roommate on the other hand lived in NYC and was spending more per month on his apartment than we did per year for our college apartment.
- natalyarostova 8y agoI did $55k USD/year in SF recently. I had great healthcare as part of my job. After rent/expenses I didn't really save any money, but my experienced was preparing me to have a substantive private sector salary after a few years. I could have cut it down to 40k/year somewhat easily, if I also went for a long commute and gave up some luxuries like eating out. Below 40k I would have had to learned some more serious frugality tricks.
- SmushyTaco 8y agoIt depends on the location since prices are different everywhere you go.
- peelle 8y agoAs others have already said, it depends on location, definition of quality, and so on. Below, I added some numbers from my past. The everything else is still just for minimum/essentials. It includes things like car insurance, utilities, repairs, gas money to get to work, clothing, etc. --- In 2003 as a college freshman(college paid for by parents/loans), I got by in Jonesboro, Arkansas for around $7000 a year. $3,000 - rent in a run down part of town. $1,000 - food $3,000 - everything else. --- 2005, in Columbia, MO I got by spending about $14,000. $8,000 - rent $2,000 - food $4,000 - everything else --- 2006, in Columbia, MO I got by spending about $10,000. $3,2000 - rented a nice 5 bedroom split 5 ways. $2,800 - food $4,000 - everything else --- In 2015, at Lake Worth, FL for around $20,000. $11,000 - rent $4,000 - food $5,000 - everything else --- This year I'm looking to rent in Taipei, Taiwan. Here's what I have so far priced things out at. $16,000 - $25,000. $12,000 - $18,000 - rent $2,000 - $3,000 - food $2,000 - $4,000 - everything else In between the 2006 & 2015 rentals, I purchased and lived in a home. Also, like most people over time I went from $500 clunkers to a $5,000 reliable car, rented in nicer neighborhoods, bought higher quality food, and so on.