That's what I did with the one I got awhile ago.

Taking a well-deserved vacay. and probably squirreling away the rest. Maybe indulge in one decadent clothing item.

You pay for hookers 'cause you can't get any pussy on your own terms. S-A-D.

Get the bacon at Lugers!

really? i am sorry, but how is that?

this is going to be one of those pre-work, i-don't-really-know-what-iam-talking-about-but-would-love-some-insight, back of the envelope calculations:

analysts net $5000/month

of which they get a take home of roughly $3000.

with ~1500 of that going to rent, that's still $1500 for basically everything.

assuming $150/week for drinks/going out and $400 for utilities/extraneous expenses, that's still $500 left over. not much margin for error, but still. maxed out credit cards?

*waits for the inevitable real-world smackdown*

oh boy

and here i am already dealing with college debt. haha

thankfully, almost all pe firms pay bonuses in december, so i am hoping for additional liquidity in 6 months. well, if there is a bonus. haha

I love the back of the envelope budgeting...

$3600/month post tax.
1600/month on rent
100/cable
100/phone
100/utilities
100/dry cleaning & laundry
200/lunch
100/Starbucks
1000/one night a week of drinking, dinner (middle of the road)
200/wardrobe maintenance, personal clothes

That's $100/month in savings with a lot of CHEAP assumptions.

I'm amazed at how many people in finance are so poor at managing their money (this isn't a commentary on anyone in this thread, just in general). I guess it depends on your mindset and attitude towards money, but if I don't have the money to do/buy something, I don't buy it. I know many fellow analysts who have heavy credit card balances after a year in New York, and now that bonuses are coming in much lighter than expected they're rethinking some of their previous spending habits...

Damn, $1000 a month just for one night per week of going out and drinking/dinner. I guess that is NYC for you, but that would still be $200 or more per outing.

Anyways, call me a lame ass but if I had extra cash to spend I would buy a brand new Gibson Les Paul and maybe a Marshall Stack. I love playing, so that is where my money would go.

You could live outside Manhattan but I wouldn't recommend it if you're in NY... not really worth the savings you might get.

Where you really save is by living somewhere with low cost of living, like Houston.

I agree with you to an extent. I was always amazed that people got by living in Manhattan on salaries of less than 60 or 70K. One of my best friends is a teacher that lives in a closet in the LES and somehow still makes it work. The reality is, almost everyone making under that threshold is getting help from their parents. Because while it's embarassing to say that you're scraping by on 100K+, it's no impossible to imagine in a city like New York. And sure, you can take a pass on all the things that come your way, but are you really going to let your budget stop you from having brunch with friends on Sunday mornings (of the few free hours you have off during week) or skip out on dinner before going out? And when it comes time at the bar where it's your turn to buy the rounds, are you going to be the guy that says "well, I've been drinking beer all night, and everyone has been drinking Sapphire tonics, so everyone give me 5 extra dollars?" Doesn't work that way.

I really think the cost of living excuse for not working in NYC is bogus. Yes, its expensive here but down the road having worked at BB in NYC is worth more than the little bit of credit card debt you have to net out with your bonus every year until you start making more money.

1 year of banking in Houston, 55k base:

Income:
~3300/month (no state income tax in Houston)
Expenses:
Rent: $300/month (lived in a newly renovated house near Rice University with 3 of my best friends from High School. They were all in medical school so our hours were similar)
Cell: $80/month
Gas: $100/month (this was 2 years ago)
Utilities: $100/month

Our group was pretty slammed the whole year so I didn't go out very much. I also only worked with one other analyst, so the people I ran with weren't the models and bottles types. I ended up having about $8k in my checking account at bonus time, took home a $50k bonus and left banking with nearly $35k in cash.

edit: that said, I'm happy that I left Houston. It's easier to network in NYC, and the access to big deals is far better. I took Houston because I didn't get any NYC offers. And while I kind of roll my eyes at the thought of a bunch of 23-year-old analysts spending $200 in a club and high-fiving themselves because they're such high rollers, I know I would have been the exact same douchebag had I been given the opportunity.

I know I requested that deal toy be made with a mirror finish on the back for a reason...

I know that it goes against the BB ibanking culture, but a live-in working girlfriend actually makes it a lot easier to save. Your portion of rent drastically decreases, so does the dining out and going drinking part (and we alternate who pays for dinner and drinks if we are going out together). On a guys night out though I do spend quite a bit more. I also pack my own lunch and make my own coffee in the morning completely avoiding Starbucks or pret.
As for the bonus, it's going in the bank and not coming out. As youve probably guessed, i'm quite cheap.

of course, spending that much on dinner and drinks is a personal choice. curiousmonkey, it all depends on where you want to go. it's perfectly possible to have a nice dinner and/or get drunk with friends for far less than what gametheory says. then again, i suppose that the culture at your particular firm has some sway in where you go/don't go. maybe you don't want to be *that* analyst that goes to *that* lowly bar or restaurant.

regardless, it is by no means necessary to spend that much money to still have a good time.

I agree, but 150 dollars on dinner is not as unreasonable as you think. I'm not even talking about going to one of the nicer restaurants in the city. Any West Village mid-tier restaurant (Da Silvano, Del Anima) tab can easily run you 150 - which is probably 120-125 after tax and before tip, call it 115 before tax - easily acheivable after appetizers, main course and a couple bottles of wine (split 2 or 3 ways).

No better sound in the world than the "click clack" sound, when my titanium black card hits the mirror

A lot of people talking about buying blow on this thread... Now, how many actually have seen a line let alone blown one?

Who here didn't see and do a line of blow freshman year of college?

It's a $5-10B fund.

Don't they do drug tests in banking?

owned

west coast (LA) banking helps the savings account a little bit because of modestly lower cost of living but it is largely offset by higher transportation costs - upfront cost of car (or payment of a few hundred per month), 100/month insurance and 100-200 on gas.

But night life is not manhattan-expensive.

Better than Red Bull