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hardcore_gamer

How much money can you afford on luxury?

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After you have paid for everything that matters such as rent, bills, food and perhaps or even probably monthly savings, how much is left for you to spend on luxuries like games, beer etc?

In my case its not very much I am afraid. My money plan leaves me with about 90 bucks for the whole month after everything else has been paid for. Its enough for me to buy some nice things such as beer and perhaps a video game (or two if they are on some nice STEAM discount) but it can make it very hard to save up money to buy something expensive.

How much money can you afford on luxury?

EDIT: Also, for the sake of perspective how high is the income tax you are paying? In my case its over 42% even though I am a low income earner (damn tax crazy leftists!)

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When it comes to Steam sales, those don't even interest me anymore. Everything will be on Humble Bundle for $1.

You may want to cut costs and evaluate how you can save more and have money at the end of the month. While beer might be fun... can you afford it? There are cheap grocery stores like Aldi that take cash only so you save money. You can spend $4 per day on food if not $2. I've had to do that. Move to a cheaper place when your lease is up. Why have cable TV? Sometimes riding a bus is cheaper than gas. I spent $10 a day in gas for my terrible car. Other people spend 50 cents or $1 a day to ride the bus or train. Might not be able to do that for your job though.

If you've already cut all of these things, then maybe its just your job is paying you poorly.

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Somewhere in between 1000 and 1500 dollars.
We are taxed to the extreme here in Denmark.
First they take 8% of the entirety of your income. Then a few deductions before taking another 40% and of course 25% VAT on everything.

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Shaviro said:

First they take 8% of the entirety of your income. Then a few deductions before taking another 40% and of course 25% VAT on everything.


Come to Greece: you can be taxed just as badly if not worse, and enjoy NONE of the nominal social/welfare benefits you enjoy in Denmark *grin*

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€1000 a month, approx.

My experience has been that people who run out of money early often need to examine their spending habits. Far too often they can improve things a lot if they put a little more thought into what they buy.

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Maes said:

Come to Greece: you can be taxed just as badly if not worse, and enjoy NONE of the nominal social/welfare benefits you enjoy in Denmark *grin*


Or come to New Jersey, and be taxed just as badly; enjoy the turnpike, and receive free cancer by way of air and water.

We have the best failing schools! Who needs to go on a roller-coaster, considering how fun it is to drive on our shamefully maintained roads. And best of all, we stay true to our mafia image by electing the most corrupt politicians on the east coast.

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Maes said:

Come to Greece: you can be taxed just as badly if not worse, and enjoy NONE of the nominal social/welfare benefits you enjoy in Denmark *grin*


This is one of the reasons I hate our leftists (which thankfully have now been kicked out of government) so much. They are basically really corrupt versions of the Scandinavian social-democrats, raising taxes through the roof like Norway and Sweeden but then just waste the money on nonsense instead of actually improving healthcare or welfare like they claim they want to. Even in spite of our high taxes our healthcare system is falling a part for example. Our current governent even recently announced that it is going to start charging people for staying in hospitals even though they are suppose to be paid for by the high taxes in the first place. I guess Iceland is kind of like the US in terms of distrust of government just not as extreme.

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Hardcore_gamer, the way you describe Iceland it sounds pretty much like the Greece of Scandinavia O_o Ironic, since before the crisis, many politicians had promised to make Greece the "Denmark of the South".

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Shaviro said:

Somewhere in between 1000 and 1500 dollars.

Something like this. Taxes+welfare deductions total around 33 % at the moment (will be rising since it's based on income from two years back).

It helps that my monthly necessities are literally made up by rent, food, electricity and student loan payments. :P

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I am an unemployed college student, so I don't have a steady source of income.

The money I've managed to scrape together doing odd jobs is sitting in the bank and, as an incentive to get out and become established financially, I'm not willing to make any luxury purchases until I have a job. Luckily, my school has low tuition, so I don't have to be worried about student loans.

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Maes said:

Hardcore_gamer, the way you describe Iceland it sounds pretty much like the Greece of Scandinavia O_o Ironic, since before the crisis, many politicians had promised to make Greece the "Denmark of the South".


Yea.

Our conservatives aren't really that awesome either. After the total disaster that the last leftist government was the right-wing parties won the recent congressional election that took place a few months ago in a landslide victory, promising to end the horrible high taxes and other similar nonsense the leftists started. So far they have only been in power for a few months and yet they have already started to bail on many of their promises.

They made a huge deal out of the fact that almost half of most families expenses were taxes, and said they would fix it. Recently they "delieverd" on their promise by announcing a microscoping reduction on the income tax which would have saved the typical person about 1800 kr a month, which is roughly 16 US dollars...

And the best part? They just announced a couple of days ago that they changed their mind since "the healthcare system needs the money too much"...the same healthcare system they are starving for money while they increase funds to the church at the same time...

I swear that there will be an open revolution in Iceland soon if this crap goes on. Perhaps Iceland needs to take the Greek route and found some kind of Icelandic Golden dawn to "free" the country from the evil corruption :(

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Full time student, part time job, no student loan, but I get 3500 NOK from the state each month because Im studying ---> approx 15000 NOK income pr month

Rent: 5000 /month
Bills: 1000 7month
Necessary food: hmmm, dunno about this...lets say 1500 (I consider "good and expensive food" a luxury)

Thats 15000 - 7500 = 7500. 7500 NOK = 1255 USD

My income vary a bit, but Id say I have somewhere between 1000 - 1500 USD to spend each month.

Its pretty much.

edit: that being said, I spend quite alot of that on food. That is, good food, which I, as I said, consider a luxury. No Im not fat (as Csonicgo concluded with the last time I talked about food here) ;)

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hardcore_gamer said:

Perhaps Iceland needs to take the Greek route and found some kind of Icelandic Golden dawn to "free" the country from the evil corruption :(


Well, apart from the fact that the "original" Golden Dawn is not doing so well (it's currently the victim of a not-so-covert political prosecution operation), an Icelandic "Golden Dawn" would be the ultimate for white nationalists everywhere. Can't get more Aryan than that ;-)

But you'd need about 50000-100000 pakistanis to suddenly wash on your shores to justify that amount of being pissed off and going all-nationalist.

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hardcore_gamer said:

Perhaps Iceland needs to take the Greek route and found some kind of Icelandic Golden dawn to "free" the country from the evil corruption :(

Yeah but how many 'not-a-swastika and not-a-nazi-salute' swastika and nazi salute variations can there really be? You can't steal theirs. That's going to be your biggest hurdle. Well, maybe your second. Finding foreigners and brown people to beat up and kill looks to be an even bigger issue as the top 2 non icelandic nationalities living in iceland are polish and lithuanian.

It'll be tough, but if you believe in yourself and your nation state you can persevere through.

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Quast said:

Yeah but how many 'not-a-swastika and not-a-nazi-salute' swastika and nazi salute variations can there really be?


Well, they could claim to be the only legimitate users of some ancient runic Viking salute, shield-banging etc. :-p There's already Stav, truly a martial art fit for a Viking warrior, aaaagh!!!

Otherwise...

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I've saved up a lot of money since graduating from high school earlier this year, but I try not to spend more than 100€ a month on luxury stuff.

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I've been saving my part of my pensions while I've been living in my parents home, although my mother has borrowed a lot of my share of the payment a lot of times and owes me a great deal more than I have on me already, will be moving into my own place soon once the house sells and she'll then be able to pay me back what she owes me, I'll be able to finally get my much needed decent internet connection also. :P

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I get paid bi-weekly, and I'm salaried, so I have a consistent amount I plan with. So in a month, the first check I get goes to bills, gas, etc; with about 10% left over for food, random stuff, and going out with my friends and girlfriend, and other items I may need. Then the second check I get, I put about 90% of it straight into my savings account. Then I use the remaining 10% just like two week prior. When there are certain events like birthdays, anniversary, or Christmas; I'll usually only save 50% of my second check, and use about 40% on gifts and other bullshit.

Therefore, since I have a tight budget, I'll normally spend less than 10 percent of my income on luxuries.

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Going by my wage slip and some quick calculations on known expenditures, of my monthly wage:
Net is about 70% of Gross (so NI, Tax and Student Loan Repayments are about 30% of my wage)
Then, of my Net, my rent is another 25%
Phone, internet, electricity and water bills are probably less than 10% of the Net pay combined
I also have a monthly subscription to a gym for £16, which I'll count as a necessity, as I do an office job and do therefore need some way of ensuring I'm exercised regularly and fit.

So adding all that together, I probably end up with ~£800 per month for food, drink, travel, leisure activities, maintaining stuff and general expenditure. As of late I've actually been spending slightly more than I should, I believe, as I used to always have enough to comfortably pay off my rent before my wage slip for the month came in but definitely won't have that cushion this month. (I don't need to do that, as my standing order for rent hits within the few days after my wage goes in)

It might be sensible for me to reign in spending for a few months to build back a surplus or move my rent payment slightly later in the month to ensure it never hits before my wage does, to be honest, but I'm pretty comfortable and have done a lot of travel this year, so this is probably unusually high outgoing as of late.

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90% of my expense is rent and food, and I only need my computer to be happy (well, that and I'm engaged, so I already have a girl). It's been over a year since I perfected my PC build and I'm still absolutely ecstatic over how great it is to use for production and gaming, it has become an extension of me.

Roughly $500-700 depending on how much I dine out (dining out for me is considered an essential, as I may skimp on many things, but eating well is a must).

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