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>saving 6 months worth of expenses on a tech salary when you have no dependants is trivial I have no dependants, I am 25 and I would love to be earning the kin

>saving 6 months worth of expenses on a tech salary when you have no dependants is trivial I have no dependants, I am 25 and I would love to be earning the kind of money in my tech job that made saving 6 months worth of expenses "trivial". Where are these jobs and how can I get one?

ig1 13y ago
You basically need to be saving 33% of your take home salary. As a rule of thumb you shouldn't be spending more than a third of take-home on your housing. That leaves you with 33% for your cost of living. To see how that breaks down in "real-money", the take-home of an average CS graduate working at a typical large company in a developer role in London would be around 20k. So that would be around £550/month (£6600/year) in rent, so a shared flat in a cheap-to-average part of town. Food would cost you about £2000/year Personal goods another £2000/year Travel around £1200/year. Leisure around £1400/year. Leaving you with £6.6k in savings, enough to afford all of the above for another six months without pay.
- bosie 13y ago
  > so a shared flat in a cheap-to-average part of town. mind sharing the cheap-to-average parts of town? I am just curious how far out they are. thank you.
- hipsters_unite 13y ago
  Except that after tax and council tax, and energy bills and phone bill (internet and mobile), there is no way you would have that £6.6k in London. It'd be possible in another part of the UK maybe, but not trivial by any means.
  - ig1 13y ago
    Your crazy if you think you can't get a flat-share in london including bills for £6.6k. Literally hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people are spending less than that. Council tax doesn't increase with the number of people in a flat (>1), so when you're sharing the price for that goes down dramatically. You could easily reduce your spending in other categories as well if you wanted to spend more on rental (i.e use busses rather than the tube). Gumtree currently lists 19k flatshares below the £125/week mark: http://www.gumtree.com/search?property_room_type=&property_type=&seller_type=&min_price=&max_price=125&q=&search_location=London&category=flatshare-offered&search_scope=title http://www.gumtree.com/search?property_room_type=&property_t...
nostrademons 13y ago
Your expenses matter more than your revenue. Think of it this way: in order to save 6 months of living expenses on a year of salary, you need to put away 33% of your income. There are graduate students out there - several are probably your classmates - that live on $20K/year. Therefore, as long as you make over $30K/year, you can live like a grad student and save 6 months living expenses in a year.
jamesaguilar 13y ago
San Francisco, New York, Boston, Seattle, maybe Chicago. This list is not exhaustive.
- huu 13y ago
  Just make sure you don't live in those cities proper :P
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    You can do it there too. I'd guess the average entry-level programmer in SF makes 80k a year. 2000/mo on rent (which is honestly a pretty nice place if you're sharing) leaves you with 20k to play with while still saving netting about 20k after taxes. Of course, if you live in the valley, you could save more, but the point is to illustrate that many (single, no dependents) tech workers can live in SF and still save.
    - ars_technician 13y ago
      Your math implies 64k after taxes, which is only 20% and is completely wrong. The effective tax rate in Cali after federal and state is closer to 40%. That leaves 48k after taxes. Take out the 24k you blew on the 2k/mo apt and you're down to 24k and you haven't even put food on your plate or paid for transportation costs. Take out 4k for food assuming you don't eat at nice restaurants. Take out 2k for a train pass and maybe another 0.5k for other transportation when the train isn't adequate. You are now down to 17.5k and you haven't saved anything or done anything 'to play'. There is a reason the poverty level is around 70k in that area. 80k looks good on paper but in reality it's crap. It's about parity with a 37k salary in Austin, TX. http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/san-francisco-ca/austin-tx/80000 http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/san-francisco-ca/au...
      - jamesaguilar 13y ago
        I don't think it'll be 40% for someone making 80k per year. The effective federal rate on the first 80k is around 20%. The CA rate should be 9-10%. Maybe another 5% for soc sec. But I also made a very generous assumption re: apartment spend. I think my point stands.
jisaacstone 13y ago
I knew a guy who lived off 1/3 of his salary of ~40k. when you are single you can cut housing expenses by getting a few house-mates. Housing is the main expense for most people. That was in Idaho Here in the valley I make a typical dev salary and have 2 dependents but still save 1k, invest 1k and put 1k down against my principal every month. Tech jobs pay well and if you can't easily save large amounts of money as a developer you'd better be having a whole lot of fun.
nyan_sandwich 13y ago
It's all about expenses. I live in Vancouver, which is widely considered to be unaffordable. I spend $10k/yr. Step one is to develop a condescending attitude towards people who need to spend money. This will make it unthinkable for you to become such a person. Personal identity is a powerful thing. The rules are: don't drink, don't drive, live with friends, and budget. http://nyansandwich.info/cheapskate.html http://nyansandwich.info/cheapskate.html

ig1 13y ago

You basically need to be saving 33% of your take home salary. As a rule of thumb you shouldn't be spending more than a third of take-home on your housing. That leaves you with 33% for your cost of living. To see how that breaks down in "real-money", the take-home of an average CS graduate working at a typical large company in a developer role in London would be around 20k. So that would be around £550/month (£6600/year) in rent, so a shared flat in a cheap-to-average part of town. Food would cost you about £2000/year Personal goods another £2000/year Travel around £1200/year. Leisure around £1400/year. Leaving you with £6.6k in savings, enough to afford all of the above for another six months without pay.

bosie 13y ago
> so a shared flat in a cheap-to-average part of town. mind sharing the cheap-to-average parts of town? I am just curious how far out they are. thank you.
hipsters_unite 13y ago
Except that after tax and council tax, and energy bills and phone bill (internet and mobile), there is no way you would have that £6.6k in London. It'd be possible in another part of the UK maybe, but not trivial by any means.
- ig1 13y ago
  Your crazy if you think you can't get a flat-share in london including bills for £6.6k. Literally hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people are spending less than that. Council tax doesn't increase with the number of people in a flat (>1), so when you're sharing the price for that goes down dramatically. You could easily reduce your spending in other categories as well if you wanted to spend more on rental (i.e use busses rather than the tube). Gumtree currently lists 19k flatshares below the £125/week mark: http://www.gumtree.com/search?property_room_type=&property_type=&seller_type=&min_price=&max_price=125&q=&search_location=London&category=flatshare-offered&search_scope=title http://www.gumtree.com/search?property_room_type=&property_t...

nostrademons 13y ago

Your expenses matter more than your revenue. Think of it this way: in order to save 6 months of living expenses on a year of salary, you need to put away 33% of your income. There are graduate students out there - several are probably your classmates - that live on $20K/year. Therefore, as long as you make over $30K/year, you can live like a grad student and save 6 months living expenses in a year.

jamesaguilar 13y ago

San Francisco, New York, Boston, Seattle, maybe Chicago. This list is not exhaustive.

huu 13y ago
Just make sure you don't live in those cities proper :P
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  You can do it there too. I'd guess the average entry-level programmer in SF makes 80k a year. 2000/mo on rent (which is honestly a pretty nice place if you're sharing) leaves you with 20k to play with while still saving netting about 20k after taxes. Of course, if you live in the valley, you could save more, but the point is to illustrate that many (single, no dependents) tech workers can live in SF and still save.
  - ars_technician 13y ago
    Your math implies 64k after taxes, which is only 20% and is completely wrong. The effective tax rate in Cali after federal and state is closer to 40%. That leaves 48k after taxes. Take out the 24k you blew on the 2k/mo apt and you're down to 24k and you haven't even put food on your plate or paid for transportation costs. Take out 4k for food assuming you don't eat at nice restaurants. Take out 2k for a train pass and maybe another 0.5k for other transportation when the train isn't adequate. You are now down to 17.5k and you haven't saved anything or done anything 'to play'. There is a reason the poverty level is around 70k in that area. 80k looks good on paper but in reality it's crap. It's about parity with a 37k salary in Austin, TX. http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/san-francisco-ca/austin-tx/80000 http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/san-francisco-ca/au...
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      I don't think it'll be 40% for someone making 80k per year. The effective federal rate on the first 80k is around 20%. The CA rate should be 9-10%. Maybe another 5% for soc sec. But I also made a very generous assumption re: apartment spend. I think my point stands.

jisaacstone 13y ago

I knew a guy who lived off 1/3 of his salary of ~40k. when you are single you can cut housing expenses by getting a few house-mates. Housing is the main expense for most people. That was in Idaho Here in the valley I make a typical dev salary and have 2 dependents but still save 1k, invest 1k and put 1k down against my principal every month. Tech jobs pay well and if you can't easily save large amounts of money as a developer you'd better be having a whole lot of fun.

nyan_sandwich 13y ago

It's all about expenses. I live in Vancouver, which is widely considered to be unaffordable. I spend $10k/yr. Step one is to develop a condescending attitude towards people who need to spend money. This will make it unthinkable for you to become such a person. Personal identity is a powerful thing. The rules are: don't drink, don't drive, live with friends, and budget. http://nyansandwich.info/cheapskate.html http://nyansandwich.info/cheapskate.html