Reply to Life is Easy in NW DC on $300k, AMA

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, still really curious about how you can save so much without scrimping at all.  What is your monthly take home (after taxes, tsp/401k, health insurance, etc.).  And for the TSP/401K, are you doing regular or roth? [/quote]

I've posted my budget upthread.  Take a look.  We do traditional 401k/TSP, not Roth.[/quote]

From what you posted, it looks like you are taking about $15K home a month.  That seems pretty high for an annual salary of $300K.  [/quote]

My last paycheck was 3342.08 after all the deductions.  I get paid biweekly.  My wife's paychecks are like 3100 something but she only gets paid twice a month.  So, I think that works out to more less than 14k "take home" per month.  Is this easier way to break things down for you?  I don't usually think about things this way.  "Take home" is a weird concept to me, because it seems to treat 401k (savings) the same as health insurance (spending) and taxes (a different kind of spending).  Not to mention all the complications about putting things in FSAs, or how many exemptions you claim, or whether you get a tax refund, etc.  But, does that help your question?[/quote]

That works out to be approx. $13.5 take home every month. [/quote]

Yes, it's a little more than $13.5k "take home" per month.  That's right.  Is everything clear now?[/quote]

Not really. That's a total of about $160k take home, but the after tax expenses you listed are $20k over.  That's not including the $5k annual donation (which I agree is generous):

74k taxes 
--- 
36k 401k contribs 
36k brokerage savings 
10k 529 
--- 
48k housing (includes PITI, utilities, and various home improvement/maintenance items) 
21k daycare 
11k groceries 
9k insurance and medical 
2k verizon 
--- 
11k restaurants 
11k clothes and other merchandise 
9k travel 
14k misc/uncategorized

[/quote]

I think I addressed your comment as well in my last post.  You think it's off by about $20k, but I think you're not accounting for tax refund (which went straight to the brokerage), plus the pre-tax components of daycare and medical (which don't come out of "take home").  I think that makes up for most of the difference.  I also think it's highly possible my expenses included some reimbursable expenses from work.  I didn't include as "income" the reimbursements we got from work travel, but they'd still likely show up in the expenses I listed. Lastly, I rounded all of these categories and rely on Mint to spit everything out for me.  I'm not shocked if that's not 100% lined up. [/quote]

$25K after tax difference is not a negligible amount. [/quote]

I don't know, it seems like you're really stretching it.

I've mentioned the tax refund, and the pretax contributions to daycare and medical insurance, which you're ignoring.  That covers about $17k of the difference so there's only $8k discrepancy.  If you're going to discount my entire post because I can't line up $8k expenses with my "take home" pay, I guess that's your decision, but I think you should consider a couple things that would easily explain the $8k.

[b]First, I mentioned work travel -- which would cause some incidentals to show up in my expenses that didn't come out of my take home pay (bc they were reimbursed).  Those reimbursements add up and I'd very conservatively say that's about $3k per year.  It's probably more.  We also get other reimbursements from work that I haven't mentioned (bc they seem de minimis to me and don't affect the point of the thread) -- like for metro and and cell phone data, and even my wife's gym membership.  My metro reimbursement alone is about $1k for me per year.  My wife gets one too but I don't know how much hers is.  The data reimbursement is another 70/mo (840 a year).  Those things wouldn't be reflected in our monthly "take home" and yet they'd still show up on our expenses.  [/b]

After all of that, you're really left with a $2k rounding error.  It's pretty trivial.

[/quote]

But this is the point.  You're saying "look at all the things I pay for - $11k/year for dinners, etc." but then you're not actually paying for it out of your take home.  Cell phones, gym memberships, metro reimbursements, dinners - those are the expenses that add up. [/quote]

It's like 8k in expenses.  I mean, we can call it $9k (not 11k) restaurants, $1k (not 2k) Verizon, and $8k (not 9k) travel and $10k (not 14k) in uncategorized if it makes a difference to you.[/quote]

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