The next step is to dedicate 20 percent of your take-home pay toward savings. This includes savings plans, debt payments and rainy-day funds—things you should add to, but which wouldn’t endanger your life or leave you homeless if you didn’t. That’s a bit of an oversimplification, but hopefully you get the gist.
This category of expenses should only be paid after your essentials are already taken care of and before you even think about anything in the last category of personal spending.
Think of this as your “get ahead” category. Whereas 50 percent (or less) of your income is the goal for essentials, 20 percent—or more—should be your goal as far as obligations are concerned. You’ll pay off debt quicker, and make more significant strides toward a frustration-free future by devoting as much of your income as you can to this category.
The term “retirement” might not carry a sense of urgency when you’re only 24 years old, but it certainly will become more pressing in decades to come. Just keep in mind the advantage of starting early is you will earn compounding interest the longer you let this fund grow.
***Novae Money Financial Education
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