budgeting

It’s that time of the year! I’m in the middle of writing annual performance reviews for my day job. And like all of the other managers, I needed a break from politicking. So I decided to spend a couple of hours reviewing my 2020 spending! Since I had a ton of fun doing it last year I thought I’d do it again. What a year! Standby.

Now that 2019 has come to an end, I took some time to review my finances. The week between Christmas and New Year is my favorite week of the year. Other than the obvious reasons of getting to spend time with family/friends and getting a breather from work, I get to spend time reflecting and reviewing the previous 51 weeks. And I often learn something that significantly impacts how I operate in the following year.

Recently there was an article that Financial Samurai published which outlines why a $350k household income is barely middle class in big cities like San Francisco. This was a pretty controversial article that raised a lot of eyebrows. Both from big-city dwellers as well as middle America. I previously shared my budget for a family of three and it is nowhere near the budget that Financial Samurai laid out for a family of four. In this post, I'll convey my personal take on each line item in his budget.

A lot of people in the FIRE community put a heavy emphasis on having an aggressive savings rate of 50% or more. And one of the best ways to ensure that you are saving enough is through a budgeting program that holds you accountable. In this blog post, I will share how I budget, my actual budget, and the thought process behind those numbers.