Budgetting Advice: Income and "outcome."

[samxavior198]

I am not working. I've never had an official "job." You probably figured that is why I'm here on Fusion Cash in the first place. I plan on doing some personal work at home (not online sites like FC, more like a home business). I need equipments, more advanced equipments, but I can work fine with what I currently have (but that makes the product quality a lot less and more work is required). But the urge to get new advanced equipments just doesn't stop, which is where my question come in:

How much do you think a person should spend a month based on their income. Give me your exact opinions (or facts, if you quote them as such) like this: You should make at least this much per month in order to spend this much.

I'm looking forward to your intelligent aswers coming from your experienced minds( I'm just a teen trying to figure out what life is all about).

[wittylance]

You have to budget your food, housing and things like this first in order to figure out how much you need to make.  So its hard to give advice when you don't have all the facts.  What type of business are you trying to do are you still living at home with your parents?  See to many variables you need to be more pacific.

[mh874892]

Obviously your income should first cover all of your bills. As a previous post said, it is hard to give an exact answer when we do not know that part of the situation. An easy way to figure all of that out is to set up a budget in Excel and every month input your data to double check that that you income is covering everything. Once bills are covered, I recommend saving at least 50% of your remaining money for any unforeseen circumstances and using the other 50% to spend on whatever you need, in this case putting it towards your equipment. It may be a slow process, but this way you will not be in the hole.

[mrstina08]

You gotta be more specfic. what u can do is after you take care of the things that comes first like your bills or expenses. Then see what you have left that will tell you what u have, what u can afford and what u can save. Hope this helps since u wasnt so clear. Good Luck.

[Annella]

Not knowing more specifics is going to be difficult. The first rule of thumb is to pay yourself first. At least 5% each time you get a check. Put it into a 401 interest bearing account and forget it.

Make a budget for living expenses as someone has already said (housing, food, utilities, car payment, insurance, etc.), things that must be paid every month. The rest left is your disposable income. If you want some new equipment, take the price and divide it into how much you can put aside every month. Say you want a piece of equipment that costs $500. Say you can put aside $50 a month toward the purchase of it. It will take you 10 months to buy it, but it will be yours. Everything that is a high price ticket item can be budgeted in.

Of course you can always get things on credit, but in this economy, it's better to buy things outright anymore. That's what I have been doing and it works. Once it's paid for, if something happens, they can't take what is rightfully yours. If you are paying for something on credit and lose your job or become medically unable to work anymore, things could be repossessed that are not paid for, and you also end up losing all equity you paid into the item thus far.