Trying to figure out a budget so that I can buy a house next June. I’m wanting to put 10% down and pay around 300,000 – since that’s about what I’ll be able to afford by June 2023. But, so that I will actually be able to afford that, I need to have a budget in place and follow it. It’s better to have a realistic budget that I stick to than an unrealistic one that I don’t follow at all. If I have something that’s workable, it will allow me to adjust my spending and stay within a range. If it’s unworkable, there will be no restriction.
Weekly budget to help save cash
I created a Google sheet that lists out my weekly expenses, and how changing these will allow me to get to my goal of saving $30,000 by June 2023.
| Weekly Budget / Savings Plan for Rental Property | ||||
| Hours worked per week | Hourly rate | |||
| Weekly gross income | 1410.75 | 27 | 55 | |
| Weekly taxes | -380.9025 | 27 | Percentage on taxes | |
| Weekly rent | -250 | 1000 | ||
| Weekly bills | -100 | |||
| Weekly charity | -70.5375 | 5 | Percent per week | |
| Weekly spending on food | -210 | 30 | Spending per day | |
| Remaining weekly income (investments) | 399.31 | |||
| Percentage of gross that investments amounts to | 0.2830480241 | |||
| Savings time towards rental property at this rate | Month # | Current savings in investments | 7000 | |
| Jul 2022 | 8796.895 | 1 | ||
| Aug 2022 | 10593.79 | 2 | ||
| Sep 2022 | 12390.685 | 3 | ||
| Oct 2022 | 14187.58 | 4 | ||
| Nov 2022 | 15984.475 | 5 | ||
| Dec 2022 | 17781.37 | 6 | ||
| Jan 2023 | 19578.265 | 7 | ||
| Feb 2023 | 21375.16 | 8 | ||
| Mar 2023 | 23172.055 | 9 | ||
| Apr 2023 | 24968.95 | 10 | ||
| May 2023 | 26765.845 | 11 | ||
| Jun 2023 | 28562.74 | 12 | ||
| Jul 2023 | 30359.635 | 13 | ||
| Aug 2023 | 32156.53 | 14 | ||
| Sep 2023 | 33953.425 | 15 | ||
| Oct 2023 | 35750.32 | 16 | ||
| Nov 2023 | 37547.215 | 17 | ||
| Dec 2023 | 39344.11 | 18 |
Ideas for earning more money
How can I make more money?
- DJing at clubs/bars every week. If I can start earning $50 a weekend, that would be awesome. That would get me 50*4.5 = $225 extra each month. That would add about another 3% savings points to my investments, of my gross income. And $50 a week should be something easy to get started with. Imagine where I can go from there. I can get to $500, $1000 a week when I get better and better. It’s going to be a ton of extra money when I can do that. And I’ll be doing something I really love and am excited about.
- Selling things on Facebook Marketplace – There’s free stuff out on the sidewalks all of the time – especially in the streets of New York. If I can sell a few things a week, I could pick up an extra $20 – $50 a week. That would be another great boost. Even if it’s just $20 a week, that would be $20*4.5 = $90 a month.
- I get pretty excited about listing things on FB Marketplace. Just listed some chairs that I found across the street. I always wonder whether it’s okay to talk about stuff like that on my web dev blog, but it feels more fun to talk about stuff like this. It’s what I’m thinking about. Much better to have stuff like this supplementing, than for it to be just instructional stuff for web development.
- Working more hours per week – The most obvious is to just work more, since I’m contracting and get paid by the hour. I can work more, but really only to a certain extent, because my hands start getting injured at around 30 hours a week. Maybe this can be trained up, or maybe it’s a mental blockage. But I also don’t really want to even work more than this. It feels like alot to just get the 25 hours a week and still have time to do the things I want to do.
- Work on React projects – Getting contracts working with React would make work more exciting. This would make it easier to work more, and that means that it would be easier to make more money. To get contracts working with React, I need to learn React Native better, since that’s what the bulk of React-related contracts on Upwork are.
Living in New York
I am so happy to be in New York. Life feels like such an adventure. I am happy that I get to live my life full of traveling, and other wonderful things. It’s like everything I want comes true at some point. The time goes by fast, so you can get what you want pretty fast, just like Owen Cook said. First I was in Portland, Seattle, New Orleans, now here. It all feels like it’s going by quite fast. I guess that’s just part of life, that everything goes quickly. That’s why it feels important to use time wisely and to not waste time. Do things that you really want to do, and hang out with people and in situations that you really want to be in, otherwise it’s not worth it.
If I am diligent with my DJing, and I market and sell myself well, I can start making money from it. Tomorrow, Sunday, I will go into Bushwick, Bed-Stuy, and other places in Brooklyn and talk to the bars and clubs, and see if I can get a spot during the week to play. I might need to be able to do this during the week as well, since it may be busy tomorrow on Sunday too. I didn’t make it out of the house today until around 7.45pm. Tomorrow I need to leave the house basically right after I wake up if I want to be able to do things.
I need to adjust my budget a bit so that it’s a bit more realistic. With the kind of foods I’m wanting to eat now, I don’t think that I can get away with $25/day. $30 a day might be a good price.
I’m out in Times Square right now. Thinking about writing blogs for when I travel to different places. I feel like it would be cool to have some writing and pics of places. I’m glad that having a remote career has allowed me to travel so easily.
