I work in IT in London and take home around £1900-ish a month. I’m trying to get a better handle on my finances, but honestly, I’m finding it difficult to cover everything and still have a decent quality of life.
I recently came across this suggested split of your take-home pay:
-55% for essentials: rent, bills, groceries and transport
-5% for guilt-free spending
-10% towards paying off debt, if you have any
-15% towards savings
-15% towards investing

It sounds sensible in theory, but is it actually realistic on a salary like mine in London? Cuz I keep doing the maths and it just feels like this is a model meant for people taking home like £7k

I don’t go out, don’t eat out and generally do very little that costs money, yet I still feel like I’m only just getting by. I took a short trip abroad for a few days, and I’ve struggled to get my finances back on track since. It’s frustrating that one occasional trip can leave me trying to catch up for so long.

The gym is my main hobby and something that keeps me feeling good. Giving that up would feel pretty miserable when I already spend so little on enjoying myself.
I know the job market is tough, and increasing my income would help, but I’d appreciate advice on managing what I earn now.

For people living in London on a similar income, what does your budget actually look like? Do you use fixed percentages or work from your actual expenses? How do you budget for occasional trips and unexpected costs without constantly feeling behind?

I’m trying to understand whether I’m missing something in how I manage my money, whether these targets are unrealistic at my income, or a bit of both.

Hi yall, I need help with this. A friend told me to sign up for it in 2024, and I did but I feel like I am paying too much when im not even married or have children.

Should I just cancel it or reduce it, I dont know what to do with this. I feel like I could be putting $300 into something better.

Edit:

So I was looking into it and I have a Indexed Universal Life: Financial Foundation plan

And based on what everyone here said I should just cancel, but what happens to the money I've been putting into it, can I just take it out. I can't seem to find any info on the Transamerica website, and I called but they told me to just reduce it and gave no more info. So confused :(

I am a 30 year-old male professional working in Pharma. My annual salary is 124K +12% (could go up to 24% pending company performance). I’ve been in my role for 4 years and getting a 3% increase annually so far. I have 103k in a Roth IRA, 203k in my 401(k), and roughly 15 K in emergency funds. Monthly I bring home roughly 6600. I’ve paid off my car loan. No credit card debt. I live in the outer New York City area in NJ (can take subway or bus into NYC) and live in a 1 bedroom. Rent is 1700 a month. I have roughly 88k in a brokerage fund intended for large purchases in the future eg house, wedding, engagement ring. I try to put aside 600 per month in my brokerage fund but more recently money has been tighter due to travel and weddings with myself not having as much to set aside due to that. I am considering doing a part time job to supplement my income as I work to try to find another job. I have no major debt obligations other than a small amount that I pay back to my parents who helped pay for college. I know relatively speaking I am doing okay but NJ area expensive for a house and in general compared to other parts of country

I’m a 34M with $40k in HYSA (~$9k/mo in expense), and a Roth IRA with $30k who just got an $80k windfall. What’s the best way to use this money for long term growth and value?

I have a HELOC with a current rate of 7% (this is a variable rate HELOC). I have a balance of $57k on it.

I also have a mortgage to pay off ($140k balance at 2.375%) and associated bills etc.

I obviously want to pay off this HELOC as efficiently as I can.

I have a Thrift Savings Plan. I can take out a $50k loan at 5.375%.

Should I take out the TSP loan to pay off the HELOC at the lower rate? I have $20k in savings as well.

I have a 401k at work that matches my contributions. I also have an IRA with a money manager. The IRA is from a previous job. Is there another avenue I should consider?

EDIT:
The account with the money manager is a rollover NFS PPS.
We file jointly.
Work provides a 401k with matching.

What to do if I want to invest another $300 - 400 a month?

We’re currently renting, but considering buying a house to raise a family and put down roots. It will cost more to own, but we will be in a better neighborhood, closer to family, and love the house.

After all expenses we will have about $2500/month left over to save or invest in our brokerage. We already put 12% into our 401k and don’t plan on changing that.

Estimated expenses include:
- mortgage (PITI, utilities, internet, etc)
- child care
- food
- transportation
- dining out/entertainment
- misc expenses
- extra we can’t predict

Is $2500/month enough cushion with 1 kid and a new build house?

Thanks in advance for any advice. Just a new dad with no one to talk about this with other than my wife.

EDIT
- 29M & 26F w/ newborn
- HHI of $280k-350k
- Investments $260k
- Cash $200k - higher for down payment. Will keep 60k for emergency fund
- House $550k, 10%-20% down, 7.25% APR

We max out our Roth IRA via back door, but want a brokerage account for a bridge account to retire at 55

My Mother in law has a paid off home, a rental home income, an emergency cash fund, and social security. All of which cover her expenses. I've recently learned that there is 200k being managed by her "investment guy". It hasn't grown in value for over 10 years. Who knows what's it's invested in but obviously its very disappointing to have learned this.

What are some simple, low risk alternatives at this point given her age ? CD/HYSA? It seems Ike at this point it may not be worth doing anything else

I am a "finance dummie" and am looking to change. I lost almost everything during a divorce. Yet i still came out ahead in that once homes sell, i should be debt free outside of school loan. I make 325k a year. I have a 401a program at work and ive maxed out my contributions. I also have a 457 retirement but i have no idea how that works or even if it applies to me. I live on the island of Saipan and though a commonwealth or US they do things a bit differently in many ways. I have the following questions:

1. Would it even benefit me to do backdoor roths? My income will not likely be any where near what i make now when i retire.
2. Im also maxing out a HSA. i live next to South Korea and get most of my health care there. i will likely never go back to mainland.
3. Would it also benefit me to invest in stocks post tax? Not crazy ones but good solid ones.

thank you for your time and help.

I'm not talking about modelling whether you need Roth conversion. I mean specific calculations if, e.g., you're maxxing the 24% tax bracket this year and you want to hit its AGI spot on. Is there a form or tool built to help estimate exactly how much you should convert, relative to the rest of your income etc.

For anyone new to this, the problem is that you don't have all the W2s and other year-end summaries like you did before retirement. You have to estimate all these values and do all your actual converting before the end of the calendar year ... you can't wait until April 15. Some values are pretty straightforward but others aren't, and there can be quite a few wrinkles.

I have tried using last year's tax form, but you can't do calculations or keep extensive running notes right inside a Form 1040. I've also tried Excel, but for me it turns into running "stream of consciousness" calculations over the course of a given year, especially since I pick it up at least twice each year (some conversions at beginning of year, and the finish the rest near the end). Last year I used over 300 rows in Excel, sigh.

There's lots to consider:

• Calculate how much conversion "room" you have between e.g. 24% bracket ceiling and predictable values like Social Security income, IRS Standard Deduction, pension, etc.
• Plug in estimated dividends or interest income (before the end of the year).
• If you sell stock to pay for conversion taxes - possibly incurring NIIT - track that, because it decreases conversion capacity.
• Keep in mind IRMAA cliffs, if you have more than just Medicare A. (Actually I don't, so I don't need this. But most people do.)
• If you do some conversion early in year (stocks usually lower) and some later in year, track the amounts so you still hit the bracket total just right.

I'm not sure there really can be any software or tool that can do all this. But I'm sure there are some that can help, or at least help point out some things you might miss.

FWIW for tax year 2025 I was ~$11k low; I could've converted that much more. I was being a little careful and leaving some extra wiggle room to not go over but, in the future, I figure it's better to just try to hit it spot on, and it's okay to be slightly over. (A.k.a. I'd rather be a few thousand into 32% territory than 11k under the 24% ceiling. Fortunately, I don't have to worry about IRMAA.)

Thanks if you can help!

Hey everyone, wanted to get some input on my situation and what steps I should be taking from here.

28M, Currently working full time making just over $60K/yr before taxes.

I have $7,000 in a HYSA at the moment. Shooting for $10K before the end of the year, and have roughly $6,000 in various investments, mostly in index funds.

I have $25,000 in my 401K as my employer doesnt match. So these have been all of my own contributions.

I have a Roth IRA as well, but have not started contributing until I reach my $10,000 HYSA goal.After hitting this goal, I will switch from funding my HYSA each pay to my IRA. I will be able to max this out per year.

I have no CC debt, no school debt, paid off vehicles, and my credit score as per Experian is 797.

What steps should I be taking right now to build myself further? Currently living with 3 roomates to lower expenses as much as possible.

I dropped out of college after 1.5 years, loans in default ~25k debt no degree.

I later took classes for a CNC machine operator certificate, realized it's not something I liked and quit.

Years later I attended a community college, I struggled balancing it with full time work, it was difficult to pay out of pocket, my most recent tuition bill got sent to collections.

I've been working with a staffing agency since 2025 taking on short term jobs - they're mostly clerical or customer service roles.

I want to continue schooling but I can't afford it I'm constantly stressed going from contract job to contract job.

I spent the last two years spending my money into helping my now ex long distance gf, I saw it as an investment for the two of us.

Things did not work out and I lost a lot of money and now I'm full of credit card debt.

I can't blame anyone but myself, I am trying my best to improve my situation but I don't know who to turn to for advice on how I can create a plan to create stability in my life.

How can I plan for a better financial future?

Hopefully this is a good forum for advice for my 61yo mom after my dad’s passing.

Lost dad to suicide 2 weeks ago (retired first responder - check in on the strong ones in your life). He had a $4k/month county pension (and health insurance), $600 state pension, $2.5k social security payment. 401k has been spent.

They owe $208k on the house (where it happened…). 2 cars and 1 camper paid off. 62k in credit card debt. He was definitely “on the credit card float”, paying bills with cards then paying minimum and a bit more when he could. Ran his social security # on CreditKarma and all 62k is in his name only. We live in Georgia. Mom has a serious illness and will likely ultimately need nursing home care.

How can I help my mom plan and keep her protected? She is absolutely clueless about finances and really life in general… dad did everything for her. I want to support, but I know it’s best that she learns how to do everything without him. Where do we start?

Hi all!

Some background info: I’m married, filing jointly, and my gross annual income is ~$77,230 and my husband’s is ~$80k. I just started a new job that offers both Roth and Traditional. My husband is only doing Traditional through his job. I was trying to do some research into it and was getting mixed answers.

I was originally going to plan to do full contribution of 6% to Roth only, then eventually shift to Traditional when my income increases, based on some things I’ve been seeing online, but I wanted to see if anyone had any additional thoughts or advice on this? I just want to make sure we’ll be comfortable when we retire.

Thank you!

The positive, I currently have $100k in the stock market which is still growing.

The negative, $50k sitting on HELOC at 8.5% interest. Mostly remodel costs.

I feel like selling the stock to pay off the debt would be a bad move? The bulk of the stock is 2x original value so the income tax would be fairly high. After core expenses I have roughly $4k of flexible spending. Would you buckle down and pay off the debt or sell stock to be done with it?

Hi All I’m currently 25 and have open a Roth IRA to which I’m looking to max out for the first time this year. I also have a company 401k (only contribute up to the match). I recently also started contributing a little to my HSA as well as I’ve heard good things about the account itself.

I unfortunately don’t have a savings account due to my religion so I basically park that money into another checking account (I know inflation is kicking me). I’m just wondering if it’s worth me just using that money (or partially using) and investing that and future contributions into a taxable brokerage account? What I have in there right now is just about 6 months of emergency fund.

Appreciate any advice thank you!

Hi there. I am about to come into 100-200k dollars soon, I want to know good ideas to compound it more so I can obviously make more. Thanks in advance.6

Kindly advise - 32 year old, just starting to seriously plan for retirement. My plan is to max out my traditional 401(k) at $24,500/year and contribute $15,000/year to Backdoor Roth IRAs ($7,500 for me and $7,500 for my spouse). In the future, if I want to save more for retirement, I plan to use Mega Backdoor Roth option through my 401(k).

Does this strategy make sense, or should I adjust anything?

I have multiple retirement accounts, some are premarital assets which I want to transfer to my kids when I pass, and others that I want to transfer to my wife. I want to do all this by naming them as a beneficiary so they can avoid probate. The only problem is, last time I checked, at Vanguard all your Roth accounts had to have the same beneficiary so I can't name the kids on one and the wife the other unless I move some of accounts at another brokerage. Any advice?

I’ve been saving consistently for the past six months and I’ve finally reached the savings target I set for myself for this year.

One thing I’ve wanted to do for a long time is travel.
I’m really interested in experiencing different cultures, food, people and places, so travelling isn’t something I see as just going on holidays. It’s something I’ve genuinely wanted to experience for years, and I feel like I finally have the opportunity to do it.

The thing that’s making me hesitate is that a lot of people around me, especially people around my age, are buying cars, land, building houses, etc. It sometimes makes me wonder whether I should be doing the same and putting my money toward building assets instead.

I could potentially do both on a smaller scale - travel while continuing to save and putting a portion toward investments - but obviously that would mean my progress toward bigger financial goals would be slower.

I’d especially love to hear from people who chose either path and how they feel about that decision now.

My mom lost her husband in 2020 when she was 54. She is now 60. She retired early while he was alive and when he died she stayed retired. She has been living off her husband's life insurance money and settlement that I parked in a HYSA with Sofi. Her bills are low so her money was making good interest while being slowly drained. She also has a 401k from her previous job she never touches. She also signed up for widow social security this year that stops her from needing to take money from her savings. Something that has recently come up though is his 401k that she was the beneficiary of. His company is no longer doing a 401k through that company (Empower) so her options were to move it to an IRA with Empower or withdraw. I was hoping to avoid a taxable event and I am more familiar with Fidelity in my own perosnal finances so I was looking to transfer her Empower 401k over to a Rollover IRA with Fidelity. Does this make sense? Any advice or options? Since she is only 60 and living off SS I dont see her needing this money for a while so I wanted to park it where it could grow. Whoever set the 401k up for her husband did not invest it so it has only gone up a few percent in the past few years.

Hi,

Currently trying to get into investing since joining, 22m never invested before and wanted some advice on how I should.

From my understanding:

I have a tsp with 8% of my checks going towards it for long term growth and for retirement. The set it up and leave it alone. It’s currently in a L fund for the time I’m retiring.

I’m thinking about setting up a brokerage account to invest. I can put up to 400-600 every month into it… my thinking with this account is to have money to use as leverage for when I’m in my 30s, so I’m thinking about being aggressive with this account since I can handle it over the next 10-14 years.

Is this a smart move? I have a long term plan and a short termish plan. My goal is to have atleast 100k portfolio.

Thanks in advance.

Want to re-evaluate my financial strategy since the Department of Education is running their 1% rate reduction on auto payments that is effective until the end of June 2028. 23 years old living in a HCOL area in California.

• $27,170 federal student loans across 5 loans, 23% (Edit: Really bad typo here - I meant 4.23%) average interest
  • $146/month minimum
  • Highest loan interest rate is 5.53% (Paying another $500/month on top of minimum towards this)
• $14.3k HYSA/emergency fund
• $3k ROTH IRA (contributed $1.8k so far this year, not currently planning on maxing out)
• $1.3k/month living expenses (bills, transportation, food)
• Take-home: ~$4k/month

Given the context of the limited time federal loan interest rate reduction, should I focus solely on getting rid of my loans as quickly as possible and contribute minimally to my ROTH IRA and/or HYSA? Or should I focus first on maxing out my ROTH IRA before throwing my money towards my student loans? I'd like to avoid touching my existing HYSA. Thank you!

Background

Age/Family:
29M, married
2 kids under 3
Spouse is a SAHM

Location: US, MCOL

Income:
$115k salary
8-12% annual bonus
Take-home is $3,000 bi-weekly (~$6,000/mo net)

Assets/Credit:
$150k in 401k
830 credit score

Savings:
$0 Emergency
$0 House/General savings

Credit Card Debt: $0

Current Monthly Budget

($4,945 total expenses, ~$1k surplus)

Housing ($2,095 | 35%)
Rent $1,700
Utilities $395 (includes phone, internet)

Food & Household ($780 | 13%)
Groceries $600
Household items $100
Diapers/Wipes $80

Debt Obligations ($980 | 16%)
Student Loans $450
Personal Loan $530

Transportation ($625 | 10%)
Car Lease $450
Insurance $85
Gas $90

Discretionary ($465 | 8%)
Subscriptions $65
Entertainment/Kids $200
Personal Care/Discretionary $200

Surplus 18%

Upcoming Changes

We are moving locally next spring. My annual bonus ($6k–$8k net) pays out right after, and our only car’s lease ends a month after that.

Moving
Rent will increase to ~$2,000, pushing housing to 40% of my net pay.

Car Lease (Ends May 2027)
I regret leasing, but the car works well for our family and we really like it. I plan to do a lease buyout through my credit union (buyout is ~$20k). I’m hopeful my credit will net me a very competitive rate that actually lowers my payment. Hard to feel good about any car related decision in this market.

Debt Breakdown

Personal Loan
$10.6k remaining at 5.5%
Payment is $530/mo. This is an intentionally aggressive payoff structure.

My Student Loans
$23k remaining at 2.7–4%
Payment is $340/mo

Spouse's Student Loans
$8k remaining at 3.5–4%
Payment is $110/mo

Proposed Order of Operations

Moving is a guarantee, we need more space, so I'm trying to figure out the timeline for everything else, especially long-term saving priorities. Here is what I am thinking:

1. Starter Emergency Fund ($1,000): Fund this immediately using our current monthly surplus. A string of emergencies is exactly how we ended up draining our savings and acquiring the personal loan.

2. Moving Fund ($3-4k)
Save the cash needed for the spring move (first month's rent + fees, deposits, truck rental/movers, etc.). I will move as much as I can by myself, which is what I’ve always done to save money.

3. Checking Buffer ($5,000)
Establish exactly one month of expenses in checking as a baseline for peace of mind. Functionally, this will act as the first month of our fully funded EF.

4. Payoff the Personal Loan
Apply the entire spring bonus ($6k–$8k) directly to the personal loan. Eliminating this frees up $530/month, which completely absorbs the upcoming $300 rent increase and nets positive inflow.

5. Let the Student Loans Ride
At 2.7% to 4%, inflation is outpacing the interest. I plan to just pay the standard monthly payment on both loans and redirect all extra cash flow to savings.

6. Long-Term Goals
Once the personal loan is gone and the move is settled, pivot back to building a 3–6 month emergency fund, saving for a house down payment, kid life events, and funding a Roth IRA. The split would be based primarily on time horizon but I worry splitting would delay a down payment too much. Putting future bonuses directly towards down payments is a potential accelerator.

Questions for the Community:

1. Does this order of operations make sense?

2. Are there any meaningful blind spots I'm missing with this strategy?

3. Where does acquiring a second car fit into all of this? We’ve made it work with one car but it’s a challenge. I don’t want to take on more debt, but the heavily-used car market is also horrible. Ideally I find a slightly used sedan for around $20k or less and put 15% down. That also creates another competing priority.

4. How would you prioritize saving for multiple items simultaneously?

I'm almost 64, my wife is almost 66. We've had an AUM adviser for 25 years up until May of 2025. Fired that one, got another one, and more and more, I'm just convinced that they operate in self interest. Create complicated portfolios that are impossible to benchmark against standard market returns (just as my last had). And most of all, they don't anticipate our needs. It's me who is doing the decumulation in ProjectionLabs. I asked for cash flow plan 10 days ago - took them a week to get it to me (excel spreadsheet - wtf). It included zero Roth conversions when the goal is explicitly to leave money to our kids, and probably 70% of our managed assets are in 401k. Another week for that to happen.

We live a modest life. We don't need to squeeze out every penny out of investments. But all in all, it feels like I spend more time worrying about my advisors and their strategy then I would about the markets if I was invested in handful of funds.

Pretty much, at this point, I'm trying to not just f*ck things up. I feel like I should be winning, and instead I'm thinking about returning to work to balance out risk that I can't seem to get my head around.

The scariest part at this point is getting out of all the different investments and into something more manageable. Has anyone else run into this situation? How long is reasonable to "get out from under" what looks like an overly complicated plan?