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25yr Old Engineer with Condo(?) Fever

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Kinosh:
Life Situation: 25 year old single childless engineer renting a room in a shared house after moving to TX a few months ago.

All numbers per paycheck. Paid biweekly.

Salary:
$3057 - Salary ($6625/month)
$36 - Dividends ($80/month)
OT & Bonus represent ~10k-15k/yr in income, but assumed to be $0.

Deductions:
$692 - 401k ($1,500/month)
$57 - Vacation Buy ($125/month)
$53 - HSA ($116/month)
$12 - Health Insurance & Supplemental AD&D ($26/month)

Taxes
$255 - Federal Income ($552/month)
$180 - FICA ($390/month)

AGI:
$2323 ($4859/month)

Expenses:
$800 - Savings ($1,733/month)
$341 - Rent & Utilities ($740/month)
$276 - Restaurant/Alcohol/Food ($600/month)
$184 - Amazon/Household/Clothes ($400/month)
$180 - Travel/Vacation ($390/month)
$92 - Donations ($200/month)
$87 - Car Ins. ($190/month)
$57 - Self-storage ($124/month)
$46 - Car Tolls/Fuel/Maint ($100/month)
$23 - Makerspace Subscription ($50/month)
$10 - Spotify & Netflix ($22/month)

Assets:
$40,300 - Vanguard Acct. ($15k Roth, remainder is after tax)
$28,000 - Vested 401k
$11,000 - Vehicle
$4,000 - Bank Accounts

Liabilities:
$27,000 - Family "loan" (weird fallout from a divorce, I basically just hold the money).
No car or student loans. No carried CC debt.

Couple of notes:

1) Fuel expense is low because of my job. I have access to cars with paid maint. and fuel (not tolls, though). Still need to keep my own car because I can't guarantee 100% access.

2) The storage unit is holding my tools. I need to either move or sell the tools to get rid of this expense.

3) The shared house results in very little fridge/freezer space. Long hours and poor batch cooking conditions result in me eating most of my meals at the work canteen (moderately healthy w/ a subsidized salad bar).

4) Savings is highly dependent on lumpy expenses that month. Moving is expensive, yo.

5) Don't touch the family "loan". Just assume its an instantly callable debit against my assets.

6) There's missing money on the expenses side. Not sure where that goes. I don't personally use a budget. Basically buy what I want and it happens to leave me a pile to save at the end of the month.

7) I don't keep 401k contributions even throughout the year. Taxes and stuff are guestimates assuming a steady "max 401k" contribution rate.

Question:
I'd like to get a condo that I can dick around with (Heated bidet? Yes please!). I'm thinking ~$160k range. My relocation package closes in ~9 months and covers roughly $6k in free money and another $4 worth of closing costs. I'd like to use it.

My rough plan would be to reduce 401k contributions to 6% and continue getting a match, get rid of the storage unit, & keep vacation the same (that line item keeps me sane as an engineer living like a college student). I'm thinking there is ~2.7k/month in after tax free cash I could set aside for 6 months. $15k (saved during 6mths) +$15k (previous savings)+$10k (401k loan - I hate this) = down payment.

Key points: My living situation is a result of a short time to decide where to live, flexibility of the house lease, and being close to work. It is not a tenable long term solution for multiple reasons (kind of dumpy, no bueno for dating, cramped cooking conditions, there's some interesting tensions from your roomates knowing you make 2x-4x what they do). It's fine for now, but definately a situation where a targeted end date has to be there.

Other option is to rent a place, but my hobbies include woodworking, wrenching on shit, and generally not uprooting my life 1x/yr anymore. I've spent the last 6 years moving 2x-3x/yr. No more.

Thoughts?

Kinosh:
A large part of me feels like I'm spending a lot of time and effort to chase a fairly unnecessary $10k...

marty998:
What did you do with the $27k you are holding form the family divorce? It's not listed in your assets column. I wouldn't feel comfortable holding it in anything other than cash.

And is it really a weird situation? I suppose it could be either good or bad - helping someone hide assets from a spouse entitled to alimony (bad), or helping someone escape from a toxic marriage (good)... not here to judge that though.

You earn more than enough to buy your own place, but you don't really have a deposit. Only you can really decide whether the increased cost stacks up against tolerating your share house situation.

Dee18:
Can you woodwork in a condo? 

Laura33:
I would caution you about the condo option, as I don't know how many condos would allow woodworking or provide a sufficiently private, quiet space to do that in.  Maybe if you found one with a private, enclosed garage, but where I live, that is more in the realm of townhouses.

I think if you are serious about house-hunting, you need to really double down on tracking your expenses and figuring out a "real" budget, not just to save the money, but to figure out how much you can really afford while meeting your savings goals.  Savings/401(k) should never hinge on what other expenses you have that month; you should plan for those "lumpy" expenses by putting enough into your bank account every month that you can pay the insurance bill and new tires for the car and whatever when they happen, without having to cut back somewhere else that month.  Because there are always lumpy expenses and unexpected events; if you don't plan for them in advance, you'll be 10 years down the road wondering why you can never hit your savings target. 

This ties in with the need to track your spending:  you are repeatedly surprised by lumpy expenses because that's all the non-routine stuff that you don't tend to think of when you are just trying to list out your monthly expenses.  Track your expenses with Mint or YNAB or something similar for at least 6 months, and you'll get a better sense of all of the things you are missing -- the occasional co-pay or prescription you didn't put in for reimbursement; Home Depot runs for things like sandpaper or oil or tool repair/replacement; the dollar you put in the soda machine; the food cart you bought in cash and forgot about; etc.

Specific questions/comments:

Why is your car insurance so high?  Is it because you just turned 25, and the rate was based on less-than-25-yr-old male driver?  Is it because your car is relatively expensive?  Shop around here.

I understand you need a car for backup days, but does it need to be a car worth $11K?  If you are serious about saving for a downpayment to buy a house within your timeframe, these are the kind of choices you have to make.

You do not need AD&D insurance.  No one does.  You do need disability insurance.

You are right that food spending is high.  Since you seem to be held back by fridge space, can you fit a mini-fridge in your room for extra storage? 

Amazon/household/clothes is extremely high -- and I suspect it's higher than this, because if you're at all like me, you find the process so easy and smooth that you just flat-out forget about some of the stuff you bought.  I assume much of the clothes was work-related, but you likely have a sufficient wardrobe now, so put a moratorium on that while you're saving for a house.

Finally:  there's no such thing as a "fairly unnecessary $10K."  Hell, there's no such thing as a fairly unnecessary $10.  You worked for every penny of that money, and every one of those dollars owes it to you to account for its actions -- every dollar needs to dedicate itself to your highest priorities.  But sadly, dollars tend to be fairly unreliable employees; if you aren't paying attention, they'll happily fly off to happy hours and Amazon (hard to blame them, right?  Much more fun in the moment than going into a boring savings account for a boring house).  Luckily, you're Management -- hell, you're the owner of your own sole proprietorship.  So be a good manager and keep those dollars in line and doing their jobs.

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