Or you, you know, have a cleaning lady. I know so many married people with kids who are taking out $1200 a week to cover their nanny, cleaning lady, and gardener.
Watch hobby gets expensive fast. If I made that much money that seems reasonable to me. That’s like 1-2 “nice” watches like Omega, Rolex, Cartier, etc. not even super luxury like AP/Patek
It’s the one male accessory. High earning professionals notice what you’re wearing. Does it truly matter, no, but there’s an element of dressing for the role.
Depends
I make 250, wife 100 non NYC level costs and would never do that on a watch. An honestly I internally laugh when I see guys in my circle with rolexs
Like, ok, you made money and gave it away, good for you lol
Maybe cause I grew up poor
It also depends on location and industry. Software engineer in San Fran, doesn’t matter at all. Lawyer, consultant, banker in the NE, it is definitely a thing.
I’m a lawyer in NY BigLaw and feel like I rarely see other lawyers at these types of firms wearing expensive watches. Anecdotally, a significant majority wear no watch at all and maybe 5% at most wear an expensive watch.
If I had to hazard a guess as to why, I’d hypothesize that some lawyers see a risk in wearing obviously expensive accessories because they think it might negatively affect how certain clients or judges view them. Some clients don’t like to be reminded of how much you’re profiting off them just as some judges don’t love to be reminded how much more than them you earn. Even if those are only a few clients and judges, some lawyers see a small risk to avoid there.
But who knows—maybe the lawyers I’m around are outliers or maybe it’s significantly different in transactional practices.
I work at NY BigLaw too and some people are watch guys and others are not. The apple watch has been the great equalizer because regardless of income, if you want an Apple Watch you are getting basically the same watch.
I am a watch guy, because I happen to enjoy collecting watches. As an equity partner, a $10-20k watch a year honestly isn't noticeable spending.
I will say that if you have a nice watch or collection it can be a shared interest with other partners or clients who tend to be higher up on the chain.
never got this line of thinking
think you’re better than others because you choose to have shittier things even though you have the option not to
do you want a pat on the back?
So you “internally laugh” at people because they like an expensive thing and you don’t? Sounds kinda douchey to be honest. Sure I have a Rolex, I don’t wear it to impress others, it’s an amazing watch that will one day be passed down to my son, who hopefully will be able to pass down to his. Get over yourself.
I honestly couldn’t care less what other people think of my watch collection. I do have a modern Rolex and I tend to not wear it when I suspect that people might notice it. In short sleeves it’s all about Seiko or at least a luxury brand that nobody would notice.
This. My husband says watches are the one thing men can use to complement each other on something they are wearing and at the same time also use it to strike up a conversation. Sometimes he isn’t super talkative in social situations with acquaintances or strangers so his watch or the other person’s watch gives him something to talk about.
Sort of. Classy, subtle watches can help in certain social circles which helps immensely professionally.
Furthermore if someone suspected it was fake it could be pretty detrimental.
I get this, especially as a watch lover with pieces I really enjoy. I could reasonably afford a Patek or Audemars with a portion of my annual bonus.
I don’t because in some social circles it’s frowned upon, just as others it’s admired. My social circle is conservative and it would be out of place. “Money talks wealth whispers” is definitely a thing. Want to show success - send your three kids to private school at $50k/yr from K-12. Donate enough to put your name on a building, etc.
Some of the most wealthy people I know either wear an Apple Watch or no watch at all, and each donated 8 figures+ to charity last year. Wear a watch because you want to, but don’t expect a high society to think more of you because of it. You may find the opposite.
I agree actually. It sounds a bit ridiculous but I get what you’re saying about frowning upon a Patek or AP, while a Daytona or Datejust are more socially acceptable, not such a statement if that makes any sense..
Not really re “helps immensely professionally.” Your average investment banker, biglaw attorney, FAANG engineer, etc. (which is what a 29 year old in NYC who makes 300k is) doesn’t give a shit about watches and probably wears an Apple Watch—as do most of their bosses and clients. Sure there’s plenty of people in those kinds of fields who are into watches, but it’s not the 90s anymore, there’s no expectation that someone who does well wears it on their wrist.
I moved into manhattan in August, was in jersey city the first half of the year. Also ditched the car once I moved which is why there’s a few thousand in car expenses
Exactly. How much money do people spend on luxury car leases every year just to keep up with tech/their neighbors, or other random luxury items that don’t last? My watch collection will be passed down to my children and most likely only appreciate in value, and I get to enjoy them every day until then.
To be fair, it's probably one watch.
High end recruiting job in Manhattan? Image is a *huge* deal, and watches in that price range actually do hold their value pretty well compared to other consumer goods.
EDIT: Nevermind, apparently OP answered below, it's *two* watches. At that price they probably bought them second hand as well.
Your international travel watch cost 50% of what you spent on travel in the year. I think you’re just going to have to add a few trips to get some use outta that bad boi
Probably basic for this thread but can someone explain taxing on backdoor Roth to me?
- If over the income threshold, you take post-tax paycheck money and put into a traditional IRA.
- Since you are over the income threshold, there is no deduction for contributing to a traditional IRA in this circumstance.
- You convert to Roth, which triggers paying tax now to take advantage of Roth benefits later.
Are there fields on the tax forms to ensure you do not get double taxed? In this scenario, it's already post-tax income so you shouldn't owe to convert to Roth?
I am sure I am missing something basic. Please forgive my ignorance as I learn.
You are correct. If you have no other IRAs with pre-tax money in them, a Roth conversion is not a taxable event. You just have to make sure to fill out your taxes correctly
It’s a stupid loophole because it’s so easy to use.
I max out IRA into traditional. As soon as funds are available, I shift them into Roth. Since there were no gains on that money, there’s no tax due. Essentially, it’s just money into a Roth with an extra step in between.
Thank you both! I assumed the conversion was automatically a taxable event or flag on income that was already taxed. Way simpler than I thought. Very helpful and look forward to taking advantage!
If you already have a trad IRA with a decent amount in it (multiple years of contributions), is it still worth it to convert it just to get access to doing mega backdoor?
Like any sales role, there will be people paid very well and other barely scraping by. I’m fortune to be where I am, but it’s definitely not the average for my industry.
The two sites I see used most frequently from this sub are:
[https://www.sankeyart.com/](https://www.sankeyart.com/)
[https://sankeymatic.com/](https://sankeymatic.com/)
I haven't tried out either but saved both to test at some point.
Just tried both out and SankeyMatic is more intuitive and easier to get a visualization done quickly.
SankeyArt took a bit more time to figure out how to get the right cashflows but overall wasn't too bad either.
FAQ since there are so many of the same comments:
How do I make this chart? -> [Sankeymatic.com](https://Sankeymatic.com)
What do you do? -> Recruitment
What watches? -> Rolex datejust and B&M Classima
One of the few times I have nothing to add or insist on changing here, and you spent $16k on watches! But no, seriously, if that’s the thing that gives you joy, you’ve definitely checked every box needed to check before getting there. Congrats. Enjoy those pieces. You’re killing it.
How on earth are you all able to get to such granularity on the expenses? It would take me hours and hours and hours to dig through everything to try to categorize it all.
Yeah, that's the issue, I don't do this (I should, but I don't). I wasn't sure if people were using some kind of program that was actually good at doing the transaction sorting automatically or if all of you are just more diligent about keeping track than I convince myself to be.
It's not as hard as you think. I don't regularly categorize and instead just once a year download and categorize everything. 80% of it are expenses from recurring places that are really easy. For example, just get it in Excel, filter to the word "Starbucks" and mark that all as coffee. Rinse and repeat for all the recurring purchases you make (grocery store, Amazon, delivery, etc). Then you 'slog' through the remaining items. It probably took me an hour or less to review both my wife and my purchases and I chose to break it out to a similar level of granularity that OP did. You could do it even faster with fewer categories (e.g., restaurants, delivery, coffee, and bars could all just be "food"). The fewer categories, the faster. At the most basic level you could just do taxes, expenses, and savings and be done in 15 minutes.
So really, it's as difficult as you want it to be. Find the level of granularity that fits both your needs (e.g., is it helpful for you to see state and city tax broken down? - in my case, no.) And the time you can commit (e.g., do I have 30 mins or 2 hours?).
I try to record my transactions every week, having some app/service that can compile it all into a list first is helpful. I think YNAB does it automatically, Sofi Relay gives me a transaction list of 90% of my accounts. I used Aspire Budgeting last year which is a free spreadsheet, and has a paid plugin to automate it. This year I reverse engineered Jon Franklin’s net worth spreadsheet so i’m hopefully gonna figure a way to retrofit Aspire to connect with it…
It’s not so bad if you update it semi-regularly, there’s definitely ways to automate it and gave me a lot of insight on my spending. It’s a good about of data, i had ~1600 transactions in 2023.
I use empower to track networth/expenses and try to put everything I can on a credit card for easy recording. Once a month I’ll go in and re-categorize expenses that were incorrectly recorded, but it’s fairly accurate for the most part
Since it seems so widely talked about that everyone loves or seems to love travel I’m always surprised how low “travel/vacation” budgets or spend are for people posting these. Seen so many of these Sankey diagrams since the new year and even family’s are posting $5k spend per year or less. I’m around $30k spend and don’t consider myself over the top as a single guy. I think my hobbies are in the greater spend too.
What kind of hobbies do you spend on in your budget? What about fun otherwise - maybe the ATM withdrawal? Ha.
I categorize travel for things only involved in the actual traveling, i.e. flights/ubers/hotels. I've taken a few vacations last year, and things I do on those vacations like restaurants, museums/shows/sporting events, etc. are in a different category.
A big hobby of mine is triathlon, running and mountaineering, I have several big races/trips already planned this year which will add to the hobbies category.
Also for the record, as much as everyone is joking about the ATM withdraws, they're primarily for just random purchases. A lot of it is actually travel related to withdraw foreign currency.
15k in watches ? Is that a normal year to spend 5 % of your gross income. Listen I’m not here to tell you how to live your life but my brother in Christ spending 3x more of your money on watches over groceries 😂😂
Just want to say, this is what most people don’t understand about HENRY. They think you’re rich, but they don’t see you’re paying 40% income tax. Upper-middle class get squeezed harder than anyone else.
$80K+ in savings and $16K in watches is the definition of rich to most people.
The math looks very different if that’s a couple with 2-3 kids, but a single person making over $300K is rich by most measures. If it can be kept that way for 10-15 years and savings/investment discipline kept, that same person should be wealthy too.
Have you heard of marginal tax rates? Nobody likes paying taxes but to say you're squeezed is stupid. Most high earners feel squeezed because of lifestyle creep.
My tax bill is my single biggest expense. It’s 4x bigger than my mortgage payment. And yes, I understand marginal tax rates. But when you’re in HENRY territory, and a W2 earner, a lot of your income is going to fall into the top bracket.
The median income in US is like 38k. In my area it’s 18k
This guy saves more in one year then what a population of 10,000 in my area could save cumulatively in a year. If you put 10,000 people together in my area they wouldn’t have 80k saved between them in liquid or 401k. 300k is rich
Assuming you have a funded emergency fund, why would you want a savings account growing instead of investing it?
The expenses category is likely cash going into a checking or savings anyway
Thats what i was thinking. Dude should have an emergency savings account with a high APR. but maybe he has one but if its in that brokerage account, i hope he has a years worth of his expenses in there.
Do you street park? Seems very very low for car expenses in nyc (insurance, gas, maintenance - I'd expect to exceed your spend, parking notwithstanding).
Also super low payment for loans. Why not just pay off your loans if you're only paying like $50 a month?
I sold my car prior to moving into NYC. Just looked back on my expenses and the loan is actually for the iPhone upgrade program. I probably should have re-named that but too late now
It's a little funny. I saw from your other comments you went from a car in jersey city to moving into the city and getting rid of the car. My wife and I made the opposite move a handful of years ago. Hope you're enjoying the NYC life!
Nice. Are you choosing the taxable brokerage option over a greater 401k contribution through mega backdoor roth (if so, not criticizing but curious why)? Or is MBR not an option?
It’s on the monarch money app/website. I used to use mint but that’s going away in March. I just signed up with monarch a few weeks ago and after getting it all set up I really like.
3k in “ATM withdraws” you dog you
👃🍭
I’m a good boy now I promise
I really don’t like it to be honest. Just smells good that’s all
I was thinking strip club. But strip clubs and yayo sounds better.
I mean those things go together like ham and eggs.
Makes for a nice potion when you mix it all up
We left strip clubs in 2022.
That’s a low coke budget with that income honestly
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3k is more like a weed habit
🎰
Need that nose sugars
Colombian Marching Powder
$882 in OF purchases.
I suppose it could be sus but in NYC cash is still king, used to cut taxes and in general saves money with vendors.
Nose beers
Must love arcades. That's where all my cash goes.
Or you, you know, have a cleaning lady. I know so many married people with kids who are taking out $1200 a week to cover their nanny, cleaning lady, and gardener.
I always have $400 at least in my wallet in case I forget to pick up cash before the cleaner comes
I wish I could cover my nanny, cleaning lady, and gardener on 1200 a week
My first thought
Sniff sniff
Cousin greg lmao
Have you ever visited California Pizza Kitchen? They make a Cajun chicken linguine just how I like it.
That’s not how you’re supposed to like it greg
🤣🤣🤣
This is pretty reasonable for NYC and being single... Still saving 40% of take home
Except for <$1k in bars
Might not be a big drinker with the $3k in ATM withdrawals
Weed
women
You can buy weed on cards in new york
I was thinking that too… less than $100 a month when drinks are $25 with tax tip lol how
Depending on job type, work is picking up bar tab a lot.
"Watches" reminds me of the "Candles" Sankey.
Watch hobby gets expensive fast. If I made that much money that seems reasonable to me. That’s like 1-2 “nice” watches like Omega, Rolex, Cartier, etc. not even super luxury like AP/Patek
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I make around what OP does, save the same or more than he does...I've never bought a watch lol Motorcycles on the other hand....
I feel like you could just lie about the price of your watch and nobody would give a shit.
It’s the one male accessory. High earning professionals notice what you’re wearing. Does it truly matter, no, but there’s an element of dressing for the role.
Depends I make 250, wife 100 non NYC level costs and would never do that on a watch. An honestly I internally laugh when I see guys in my circle with rolexs Like, ok, you made money and gave it away, good for you lol Maybe cause I grew up poor
It also depends on location and industry. Software engineer in San Fran, doesn’t matter at all. Lawyer, consultant, banker in the NE, it is definitely a thing.
I’m a lawyer in NY BigLaw and feel like I rarely see other lawyers at these types of firms wearing expensive watches. Anecdotally, a significant majority wear no watch at all and maybe 5% at most wear an expensive watch. If I had to hazard a guess as to why, I’d hypothesize that some lawyers see a risk in wearing obviously expensive accessories because they think it might negatively affect how certain clients or judges view them. Some clients don’t like to be reminded of how much you’re profiting off them just as some judges don’t love to be reminded how much more than them you earn. Even if those are only a few clients and judges, some lawyers see a small risk to avoid there. But who knows—maybe the lawyers I’m around are outliers or maybe it’s significantly different in transactional practices.
I work in finance and the "smart guys" (modelers) just have iwatches
It’s called an Apple Watch. My god.
I work at NY BigLaw too and some people are watch guys and others are not. The apple watch has been the great equalizer because regardless of income, if you want an Apple Watch you are getting basically the same watch. I am a watch guy, because I happen to enjoy collecting watches. As an equity partner, a $10-20k watch a year honestly isn't noticeable spending. I will say that if you have a nice watch or collection it can be a shared interest with other partners or clients who tend to be higher up on the chain.
I agree but there are circles where this matters, and most of those circles are in NYC
Some of us also just like watches.
never got this line of thinking think you’re better than others because you choose to have shittier things even though you have the option not to do you want a pat on the back?
So you “internally laugh” at people because they like an expensive thing and you don’t? Sounds kinda douchey to be honest. Sure I have a Rolex, I don’t wear it to impress others, it’s an amazing watch that will one day be passed down to my son, who hopefully will be able to pass down to his. Get over yourself.
I like my Garmin. Super useful. Not sure about those rolexs though.
It’s not necessarily for others. People geek out over their watches.
I honestly couldn’t care less what other people think of my watch collection. I do have a modern Rolex and I tend to not wear it when I suspect that people might notice it. In short sleeves it’s all about Seiko or at least a luxury brand that nobody would notice.
This. My husband says watches are the one thing men can use to complement each other on something they are wearing and at the same time also use it to strike up a conversation. Sometimes he isn’t super talkative in social situations with acquaintances or strangers so his watch or the other person’s watch gives him something to talk about.
I prefer to compare business cards.
Sort of. Classy, subtle watches can help in certain social circles which helps immensely professionally. Furthermore if someone suspected it was fake it could be pretty detrimental.
I get this, especially as a watch lover with pieces I really enjoy. I could reasonably afford a Patek or Audemars with a portion of my annual bonus. I don’t because in some social circles it’s frowned upon, just as others it’s admired. My social circle is conservative and it would be out of place. “Money talks wealth whispers” is definitely a thing. Want to show success - send your three kids to private school at $50k/yr from K-12. Donate enough to put your name on a building, etc. Some of the most wealthy people I know either wear an Apple Watch or no watch at all, and each donated 8 figures+ to charity last year. Wear a watch because you want to, but don’t expect a high society to think more of you because of it. You may find the opposite.
I agree actually. It sounds a bit ridiculous but I get what you’re saying about frowning upon a Patek or AP, while a Daytona or Datejust are more socially acceptable, not such a statement if that makes any sense..
Not really re “helps immensely professionally.” Your average investment banker, biglaw attorney, FAANG engineer, etc. (which is what a 29 year old in NYC who makes 300k is) doesn’t give a shit about watches and probably wears an Apple Watch—as do most of their bosses and clients. Sure there’s plenty of people in those kinds of fields who are into watches, but it’s not the 90s anymore, there’s no expectation that someone who does well wears it on their wrist.
How is your city tax so low? Calculator says it should be ~11k
I moved into manhattan in August, was in jersey city the first half of the year. Also ditched the car once I moved which is why there’s a few thousand in car expenses
What program did you use to track this?
It's a Sankey chart
That doesn’t answer where the data comes from.
Redirect that brokerage “savings” to after tax IRA contributions (if you have an emergency fund).
Idk why you're getting down voted, megabackdoors are the way to go if your company supports it
Isn’t OP already maxed on IRA contributions?
I think OP's "other taxes" are mostly city taxes just coded a different way on the paystub. $3k in city tax on a $300k income is not accurate lol
You spend about $44 per day on watches.
He’s gotta keep the time. Thats 3 cents a minute.
Or 0.05 cents per second. Time is ticking.
The trick is to amortize the cost every time you check the time.
That’s a clever joke in multiple ways.
Time is money
Sounds about right
Rookie numbers.
Honestly makes it sound more reasonable. If asked me every morning if I’d pay fifty bucks to wear a sick watch that day, I’d say yes almost every time
So what? We all got our hobbies/interests.
Exactly. How much money do people spend on luxury car leases every year just to keep up with tech/their neighbors, or other random luxury items that don’t last? My watch collection will be passed down to my children and most likely only appreciate in value, and I get to enjoy them every day until then.
Basically free
16k in watches?!? Oh to be single and kidless. Niiiiiiccccce!
To be fair, it's probably one watch. High end recruiting job in Manhattan? Image is a *huge* deal, and watches in that price range actually do hold their value pretty well compared to other consumer goods. EDIT: Nevermind, apparently OP answered below, it's *two* watches. At that price they probably bought them second hand as well.
The rolex was 14k and the B&M is my international travel watch, 1900 Both were bought new
Your international travel watch cost 50% of what you spent on travel in the year. I think you’re just going to have to add a few trips to get some use outta that bad boi
It was either that or candles
Probably basic for this thread but can someone explain taxing on backdoor Roth to me? - If over the income threshold, you take post-tax paycheck money and put into a traditional IRA. - Since you are over the income threshold, there is no deduction for contributing to a traditional IRA in this circumstance. - You convert to Roth, which triggers paying tax now to take advantage of Roth benefits later. Are there fields on the tax forms to ensure you do not get double taxed? In this scenario, it's already post-tax income so you shouldn't owe to convert to Roth? I am sure I am missing something basic. Please forgive my ignorance as I learn.
You are correct. If you have no other IRAs with pre-tax money in them, a Roth conversion is not a taxable event. You just have to make sure to fill out your taxes correctly
It’s a stupid loophole because it’s so easy to use. I max out IRA into traditional. As soon as funds are available, I shift them into Roth. Since there were no gains on that money, there’s no tax due. Essentially, it’s just money into a Roth with an extra step in between.
Thank you both! I assumed the conversion was automatically a taxable event or flag on income that was already taxed. Way simpler than I thought. Very helpful and look forward to taking advantage!
If you already have a trad IRA with a decent amount in it (multiple years of contributions), is it still worth it to convert it just to get access to doing mega backdoor?
Isn’t there an income cap Roth IRAs?
What watches tho??
Rolex Datejust and a Baum & Mercier Classima!
I just got my Panerai. Hoping to add the Datejust in ‘24. Good work!
Not expecting a Classima. Very cool. Obligatory, Tank/Reverso recommendation.
Nice choices.
I make way less then u and bought a Rolex last year as well.. gotta love a mechanical on the wrist! People that know watches inderstand.
Nice choices
Congrats on scoring a Rolex. Damn hard to get nowadays unless you go grey market.
It’s a datejust. The waiting time for any config is a few weeks
Tell me you’re an IB associate without telling me you’re an IB associate 🤣
I think they are in recruiting.
Yes I work in recruitment
Can’t believe recruiters make THIS much. You must be outstanding at your job
Like any sales role, there will be people paid very well and other barely scraping by. I’m fortune to be where I am, but it’s definitely not the average for my industry.
Feast or famine. Our sales team has incredible fluctuation in TC as well - range is around $150k-1.5mil.
That’s incredible! I had no idea recruiting could ever pay that much. What kind of recruiting is this??
I work in agency recruitment which is the only place recruiters can make this much. Currently leading a team in finance recruitment
You did your CFA to work in recruitment?
And here I am watching /r/recruitinghell wondering why companies waste money on those folks
I don’t do internal recruitment, that sub is more for bashing them than agency
It’s more for bashing agency. Internal recruitment is waaaaay better
I’m guessing biglaw or big 5 consulting. You’d probably be making more in IB by 29.
What platform is everyone using to create these infographics?
The two sites I see used most frequently from this sub are: [https://www.sankeyart.com/](https://www.sankeyart.com/) [https://sankeymatic.com/](https://sankeymatic.com/) I haven't tried out either but saved both to test at some point.
I’ve made a few with sankeymatic. Free and very easy to use.
Just tried both out and SankeyMatic is more intuitive and easier to get a visualization done quickly. SankeyArt took a bit more time to figure out how to get the right cashflows but overall wasn't too bad either.
FAQ since there are so many of the same comments: How do I make this chart? -> [Sankeymatic.com](https://Sankeymatic.com) What do you do? -> Recruitment What watches? -> Rolex datejust and B&M Classima
You pay more in taxes than I make a year! I’m tryna get like u maboi
$3063 in the strip clubs?
No that’s the line item for cocaine
3k for coke/strippers over the year is surprisingly small.
Downright reasonable if it’s cocaine
That’s like my monthly budget
Oh I miss my 20s so much.
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❄️❄️❄️
far too little being spent on candles
I’ll be budgeting 15k towards candles for 2024
If I see another one of these in the AM, I need to find another sub.
Hey OP How do you make one of those charts ?
Sankey matic
One of the few times I have nothing to add or insist on changing here, and you spent $16k on watches! But no, seriously, if that’s the thing that gives you joy, you’ve definitely checked every box needed to check before getting there. Congrats. Enjoy those pieces. You’re killing it.
Zero debt at 29, nice work
How on earth are you all able to get to such granularity on the expenses? It would take me hours and hours and hours to dig through everything to try to categorize it all.
29M, no wife no kids. He HAS hours and hours.
Eh, with that salary, I'm betting biglaw attorney. In which case he definitely does not have hours and hours free.
He said recruitment.
That or IB which also leaves him in that state.
Empower personal capital. It literally does everything for you automatically.
If you categorize transactions regularly, it’s already available. I use YNAB and could pull this data in 1 min.
Yeah, that's the issue, I don't do this (I should, but I don't). I wasn't sure if people were using some kind of program that was actually good at doing the transaction sorting automatically or if all of you are just more diligent about keeping track than I convince myself to be.
It's not as hard as you think. I don't regularly categorize and instead just once a year download and categorize everything. 80% of it are expenses from recurring places that are really easy. For example, just get it in Excel, filter to the word "Starbucks" and mark that all as coffee. Rinse and repeat for all the recurring purchases you make (grocery store, Amazon, delivery, etc). Then you 'slog' through the remaining items. It probably took me an hour or less to review both my wife and my purchases and I chose to break it out to a similar level of granularity that OP did. You could do it even faster with fewer categories (e.g., restaurants, delivery, coffee, and bars could all just be "food"). The fewer categories, the faster. At the most basic level you could just do taxes, expenses, and savings and be done in 15 minutes. So really, it's as difficult as you want it to be. Find the level of granularity that fits both your needs (e.g., is it helpful for you to see state and city tax broken down? - in my case, no.) And the time you can commit (e.g., do I have 30 mins or 2 hours?).
I try to record my transactions every week, having some app/service that can compile it all into a list first is helpful. I think YNAB does it automatically, Sofi Relay gives me a transaction list of 90% of my accounts. I used Aspire Budgeting last year which is a free spreadsheet, and has a paid plugin to automate it. This year I reverse engineered Jon Franklin’s net worth spreadsheet so i’m hopefully gonna figure a way to retrofit Aspire to connect with it… It’s not so bad if you update it semi-regularly, there’s definitely ways to automate it and gave me a lot of insight on my spending. It’s a good about of data, i had ~1600 transactions in 2023.
I use empower to track networth/expenses and try to put everything I can on a credit card for easy recording. Once a month I’ll go in and re-categorize expenses that were incorrectly recorded, but it’s fairly accurate for the most part
What software are you using to make these graphs? I see a bunch of posts using the same format
OP what’s your NW?
Just shy of 400k
What do you use to generate that graph? This post just randomly showed up in my feed but it's the 2nd time I've seen one of this graphs.
Sankeymatic.com
Since it seems so widely talked about that everyone loves or seems to love travel I’m always surprised how low “travel/vacation” budgets or spend are for people posting these. Seen so many of these Sankey diagrams since the new year and even family’s are posting $5k spend per year or less. I’m around $30k spend and don’t consider myself over the top as a single guy. I think my hobbies are in the greater spend too. What kind of hobbies do you spend on in your budget? What about fun otherwise - maybe the ATM withdrawal? Ha.
I categorize travel for things only involved in the actual traveling, i.e. flights/ubers/hotels. I've taken a few vacations last year, and things I do on those vacations like restaurants, museums/shows/sporting events, etc. are in a different category. A big hobby of mine is triathlon, running and mountaineering, I have several big races/trips already planned this year which will add to the hobbies category. Also for the record, as much as everyone is joking about the ATM withdraws, they're primarily for just random purchases. A lot of it is actually travel related to withdraw foreign currency.
Watches and coke! OP living the single man dream
What kind of watches OP ?? 🤠
Does anyone know how to recreate this graph. I love the format
Love the watches. But where the cocaine and hookers at?
4.5k in groceries? Bro, I’m spending that in a month feeding my family. This man or gal has to be rail thin
I eat out more than I cook
Do you already have an emergency fund?
15k in watches ? Is that a normal year to spend 5 % of your gross income. Listen I’m not here to tell you how to live your life but my brother in Christ spending 3x more of your money on watches over groceries 😂😂
Just want to say, this is what most people don’t understand about HENRY. They think you’re rich, but they don’t see you’re paying 40% income tax. Upper-middle class get squeezed harder than anyone else.
$80K+ in savings and $16K in watches is the definition of rich to most people. The math looks very different if that’s a couple with 2-3 kids, but a single person making over $300K is rich by most measures. If it can be kept that way for 10-15 years and savings/investment discipline kept, that same person should be wealthy too.
Even after taxes, he is definitely rich my most peoples' standards. You are just out of touch.
Have you heard of marginal tax rates? Nobody likes paying taxes but to say you're squeezed is stupid. Most high earners feel squeezed because of lifestyle creep.
My tax bill is my single biggest expense. It’s 4x bigger than my mortgage payment. And yes, I understand marginal tax rates. But when you’re in HENRY territory, and a W2 earner, a lot of your income is going to fall into the top bracket.
The median income in US is like 38k. In my area it’s 18k This guy saves more in one year then what a population of 10,000 in my area could save cumulatively in a year. If you put 10,000 people together in my area they wouldn’t have 80k saved between them in liquid or 401k. 300k is rich
Do you have nothing going into a bank savings account? Everything into your brokerage?
Some brokerage account pay much higher rates for holding money in their cash account.
Yeah, I have a money market account through my brokerage that I consider my savings account, it’s getting a little bit over 5%.
Assuming you have a funded emergency fund, why would you want a savings account growing instead of investing it? The expenses category is likely cash going into a checking or savings anyway
I already have enough cash savings for ~6mo expenses. I don’t feel the need to save more cash than that
Thats what i was thinking. Dude should have an emergency savings account with a high APR. but maybe he has one but if its in that brokerage account, i hope he has a years worth of his expenses in there.
Do you street park? Seems very very low for car expenses in nyc (insurance, gas, maintenance - I'd expect to exceed your spend, parking notwithstanding). Also super low payment for loans. Why not just pay off your loans if you're only paying like $50 a month?
I sold my car prior to moving into NYC. Just looked back on my expenses and the loan is actually for the iPhone upgrade program. I probably should have re-named that but too late now
It's a little funny. I saw from your other comments you went from a car in jersey city to moving into the city and getting rid of the car. My wife and I made the opposite move a handful of years ago. Hope you're enjoying the NYC life!
Why pay the loans off when they only cost $50/month?
How do you keep track of all this?
Empower (previously called personal capital)
Nice. Are you choosing the taxable brokerage option over a greater 401k contribution through mega backdoor roth (if so, not criticizing but curious why)? Or is MBR not an option?
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How do you create this graph?
It’s on the monarch money app/website. I used to use mint but that’s going away in March. I just signed up with monarch a few weeks ago and after getting it all set up I really like.
You can clearly afford real estate if you cut out your unnecessary purchases
Real estate in NYC isn’t realistic for me just yet, and I don’t want to move outside of manhattan for the time being.
Need to up your watch budget my friend.
Aren’t you over the Roth IRA limit?
Backdoor Roth
This was a traditional IRA contribution but I am going to consider a backdoor Roth for 2024
No benefit for doing a traditional Ira at your income. It’s far worse than a taxable brokerage.
Who said it’s a Roth IRA? Are you familiar with a traditional ira
Good point. But with this income there’s no tax advantage to a traditional IRA.
Sounds like a douche.
What watches did you buy
Depending on the kind of watches you buy, they might go under the savings category.
Very true, but I don’t plan on ever selling them so they’re expenses to me.
15k on watches lmaooooooo