Does anyone here spend half their income on rent?

[mrkilla]

I'm at about 40% in NY Metro Area (Stamford CT) my choice though really I could easily payed about 1/3 of my sal but my apt my place wouldnt of had the extra loft space and beach rights and a garage

[z28dreams]

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when i was living in the DC suburbs i was spending 1/2 my take home on rent. it wasn't awful, i never felt like a broke ass, but i didn't really save anything either. but i spent way too much.

also, it depends on your take home, if you're bringing home $6k/mo and spend 1/2 on rent you still ahve a lot of money to live with. Not so if you're spending half of your $1500 monthly take home on rent.

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How's SD's rental market compared to DC...any better?

[VoraciousReader]

You should be able to cut food costs in half at least if you cook at all. 600 a month on food? For one person?

Any other recurring costs? Renter's insurance? Dry cleaning? Netflix/TiVo/gym membership? Annual travel home for Christmas and/or Thanksgiving?

How much do you spend on clothes? DVDs?Subscriptions to any kind of online entertainment? Are you losing anything with the girlfriend moving that is going to require you to replace anything? Anything else that's going to need replacing? Computer out of date, that kind of thing? Are you habitually an early adopter?

How secure is your employment? Do you have any savings?

Not having a car helps a lot, of course. It doesn't just eliminate payments and insurance, but also a lot of potential "emergencies" and ongoing maintenance expenses. Do you ever use other transportation outside of your 70 dollars per month? If you occasionally take a cab make sure to allow room for that.

If you do any of the above, which of them are you willing to sacrifice?

Edit: To answer OP's question, I did live in a place where I was spending 45% on rent and utilities for a while. I had a car and my biggest issue wasn't day to day expenses, it was what happened when the car had a problem. Basically, I think you're screwed for emergencies, but you can make it otherwise.

[Blarg]

Coming from Southern California, it's amazing to see people saying they spend little on monthly transportation. I can be out $200 bucks a month in gas alone even if I don't do anything or go anywhere but work -- and I live close to work! $3/gallon gas is insane.

[LetItBe]

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I am going to law school though, so I do plan to at least triple my income in a couple years..

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I wouldn't bet on it.

[IggyWH]

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when i was living in the DC suburbs i was spending 1/2 my take home on rent. it wasn't awful, i never felt like a broke ass, but i didn't really save anything either. but i spent way too much.

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This is my exact situation here in San Diego. About half my take home goes to rent. I could definitely live off of what I'm paid, but I've been spending way too much money. I've tapped way too much of my savings as is and that needs to stop, because if I don't and [censored] happens, I'm screwed.

[A S U]

Live in Orange County and spend 37% of my take home on my closet of a studio apt. No car payment though..

Moving in with girlfriend in december. The apts we are looking at will be about 27% of our takehome. Combined income FTW.

5-6 years ago I had a place in Long Beach, CA and spent just under 50% of my income on rent. Absolutely hated it.

[LetItBe]

And to answer the question, wife and I spend under 25% on our mortgage.

[KurtSF]

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Many financial experts say you should never ever spend more than a third of your monthly income on rent.

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Apparently many financial experts haven't updated their models since the 80s.

[JackInDaCrak]

I spend like 22% of my monthly take-home on my mortgage + HOA (heat, water, trash, snow removal, structure insurance and maintenance) for a small studio apartment in Denver.