Did some rough calculations and here’s my info:
20% Rent
10.4% Student Loans
6.2% Food (I eat out a ton)
3.0% Gas and Car Insurance ( No car payment )
2.9% Utilities (Internet, Water, Power, Cell Phone)
I’ll probably spend another 10% or so on frivolous stuff.
Just curious, how do you live on $850 a month? If I could do that, I’d never work again.
About 60% of my pay goes to living expenses (and stuff like Internet and cable). I’m lucky because I’ve got a lot of wiggle room. My parents did everything they could to send their kids off with no debt, and I’ve got some savings.
I just did a quick online apartment search for his location, and when rent is as low as $500/mon for a 2 bedroom apartment, I could see it as totally doable. As always, location is key here. In Silicon Valley, $500 would buy you a cardboard box, maybe with a tarp if you’re lucky! 
500/month got me a 10x10 room for rent. If I made the amount of money where that guy lives…wow I’d barely have to work and still afford to live in a decent place!
My girlfriend and I have sort of trapped ourselves. She purchased a one-bedroom appartment a few years back in NJ just across the river from Manhattan. Basically, all our living expenses - mortgage, cable, groceries, comes to about $1200 a month. As we both make six-figure salaries we could easily afford a much bigger place, even in the city, however having all that disposable income is pretty sweet.
Certainly a lot better than when I made half as much and paid $1800 a month for a studio.
Re: What % of your pay goes to living expenses?
All of it, man. Living is basically all I do.
Oddly enough, his location say Mountain View. Are the rents there really so different from San Jose? If so, why not move? It’s not that bad a commute, is it?
OK, even assuming your rent is $500 a month, the rest of your expenses would be $350? Less than $12 a day?! OK, let’s further assume that all your utilities are miraculously included in that rent (ha!), and I suppose you couldn’t possibly have a car or any kind of insurance. I still don’t think it’s possible. Going to a movie would blow out your entire daily budget! (Even without popcorn!)
It’s mostly because I really like the location and my commute in the mornings is only 15 minutes without any freeway driving. The premium is high, but I’m willing to take it.
I was assuming a 2 bedroom place and utilities split with a roommate, so like $18-20 a day? Ramen can go really far if you want to try! 
I dunno, I’m grasping at straws here, we’ll have to wait for word from Epimethus for an explanation.
Married, 3 kids, wife SAHM.
Mortgage, property tax, homeowners insurance: 15%
Groceries / Eating out: 10%
Transportation (car payment/gas): 12%
Utilities (power/satellite/internet/natural gas/telephone): 6%
Savings: 10%
Entertainment/Leisure: 2%
Charity: 4%
The rest is taxes, misc. debt reduction and family travel/vacation. We could save more, but our net worth is pretty strong and we enjoy having fun as a family.
Jammer
I do have a two bedroom apartment, rent is 405, I pay 205 of it (I live in Woodlake Village apartments and have a roommate). My part of utilities run 60-70 dollars, my insurance is 45 dollars a month, I spend about 150 a month on groceries about 60 bucks a month in gas (my car is paid off and has been for like 5 years). I also spend some money on the weekends ( 100/ mo or so), have a cell phone ( 50/ mo) and have a gym membership (40 / mo). All these are estimations, but I have a spreadsheet which calculates my expenses and it came out to 855.
I am poor all the time though, guess it comes with being a student and only being able to work 20 hours a week.
I think it depends on how much research you do and effort you put into things as well as what kind of compromises you are willing to make.
For instance, I live in NYC (Manhattan) and I take home after taxes/401k/insurance/etc. $2400 a month.
I share a 2 bedroom apartment with a roommate. My share of rent and utilities is $800. I have no car or insurance for that so my transportation costs are $76 per month. Groceries run about $120-$140. Entertainment runs about $100-$150. I have no debt.
Assuming $300-$350 for miscellaneous expenses, I am spending about $1400 and I have just under $1000 left over every month. I did a lot of research to find an excellent apartment at an affordable price and I work very hard to keep food/electricity/etc at an acceptable cost. I don’t spend every day in the theater or eat at Tavern on the Green. It took me a few years of work and planning to get to this point though.
I am very fortunate because I make a lot of money for a single person with no responsibilities, and I don’t pay much rent. I take home
$2080/month
$500/mo rent
$60/mo electric
$70/mo heat (prorating two oil deliveries per winter)
$70/mo telephones
$65/mo car/renter’s insurance (prorating semi-annual payments)
$125/mo gas
$1190 Groceries/food out/toiletries/household/entertainment/other
Whoa. Where does it all go. :eek:
My personal breakdown is somewhat like this:
However, this does not factor in my wife’s income at all, which covers all sorts of household expenses, the car, charities, etc.
My wife and I are currently trying to cut down expenses considerably, but due to some poor choices we made, we’re stuck for the time being. Just gotta ride it out. Ugh.
Anyway, I bring home about 2100/month, and a whopping 40% of that goes straight to the mortgage (incl. property taxes, thankfully); see ‘poor choices’, above.
The rest of my check goes to bills: internet, phones, gas, utilities, maintenance, groceries, etc.
My wife’s check pays for unforeseen things, pays down debt, and lets us enjoy a couple new books or a movie once a month or so. She only works part-time due to medical problems and we’re trying to make it without her going on disability, but if the med situation continues to worsen we’re going to have to go that route just to afford her coverage.
Blah. I hate thinking about my finances.
Lessee, I take home about $3,000 per month, after taxes (give or take; the exact number varies, depending on how busy we are). About $700-800 of that goes to expenses, so between 23 and 26 percent. I’m comfortable.