Previously, after paying all our obligations(rent, utilities, studen loan, insurances, transportation, etc) we had about $3100 left monthly for discretionary funds - food, eating out, saving, clubing, clothing, weekend trips...
If we buy this co-op, after fixed expences, we will have only $1000 to live on the entire month!
I don't know if this is possible, but I will try. I will record every cent I spend from now on, get cheapest lunches, try to minimize waste, and try to figure out if this is worth it, after all.
So, to start, here are todays figures:
0.5 donut from a street cart guy in the morning, had it with coffee at work
3.37 lunch - buffet salad bar
From the grocery store:
3.49 butter 8.8 oz
3.99 organic milk
4.49 angel wings
15.84 Total
Living cash poor -- trial run.
May 17th, 2007 at 05:28 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 05:38 pm 1179423493
May 17th, 2007 at 05:40 pm 1179423640
My only advice: it is far easier to do without things hen you are building equity in property. And give yourself "$x" per period (biweekly or monthly) for a splurge. I found having the extra money (even if it was only $15 to spend on whatever, I was free of guilt and sometimes even made decisions to not spend - ) I'm all for homeownership ...
May 17th, 2007 at 06:02 pm 1179424955
And as for savings -- how can we give up on maxing out our ROTH? But if we did not, it would eat up $666 a month from this 1K, making it impossible.
Pension fund and 401K are included in the "obligations" category, but ROTH is not. But we both are having hard time with decreasing retirement contributions.
May 17th, 2007 at 08:26 pm 1179433602
May 17th, 2007 at 09:31 pm 1179437492
May 18th, 2007 at 03:16 am 1179458182
May 18th, 2007 at 04:00 pm 1179504001