What do analyst 1’s spend their money on

Hello, 

so for the first time in my life I have money, but I genuinely spend nothing bar rent. All my food is comped taxis etc so in a week I pay for transport to work, lunch, and that’s it. Bar food on the weekends, the odd time I go out but I can’t do it too much because I work most weekends, and I’m realising that my money is just building up. 
 

I genuinely have no idea what to spend it on, because I have little to no free time. Feels kind of pointless to make this money and not spend anything, any ideas? 

25 Comments
 

Save/invest it. Going from little money to lots is always a strange transition, but don’t get caught up in old ways.

Don’t spend more just because you have it, and don’t fall for the golden handcuffs.

Invest it such that you can retire sooner. Sure, in the meantime you can now make immediate investments in things like your health that you couldn’t do before, but that’s about it.

Do not squander what you worked so hard to get

 

Wdym feels pointless? View it as buying your freedom. Roughly speaking every $10k you save up buys you a day of freedom a year in perpetuity (365 days * $10k = $3.65mm * 3% withdraw = $100k a year in income). If you don’t want to buy anything now either, save up for a house or a sports car if that’s your thing. 

 

In the sense that I don’t really derive much satisfaction from the money I make so why make it. But at the same time I enjoy doing a difficult job so wouldn’t be interested in a boring relaxed job 

 

Yeah that makes sense. Don’t forget money is a tool to buy what you want, but also no reason to spend it just to spend it. As boring as it is, it’s not  a bad idea to just save it. Get a down payment on a house saved up and all that. I think you are under-rating how nice it will be to have a couple hundred thousand saved up in a couple years.

What about paying for stuff to make your life easier? Like a cleaning service or stuff like that? 

 

Invest, buy some good quality dress shoes, shirts, suits, a nice watch if you are into that. Treat yourself with nice restaurants during the weekend because what’s the point of making money if you still live like a student

 
Most Helpful

In your 40+ year career the an1 salary is meaningless. Learn to spend what is in your wallet.

 

That’s what I’m trying to do, I’m leaning towards some reckless high risk investments currently. I’ve booked an expensive holiday but it’s still a small dent 

 

Question from a college kid-

I’m familiar with the permanent income hypothesis, but do you actually believe in it? Part of me thinks it makes sense that saving 20k vs 50k as an analyst doesn’t matter if I’ll make seven figures in my 30s, but I’m also aware of the pretty real chance I hate the gig and go do corp dev and won’t make that kind of money in the future. Any thoughts? Just live somewhere between extremes maybe?

 

Travel if you find the time for it. Did several quick weekend trips to visit friends if it was a slower week and it was always a great time. Have bought a lot of dumb crap in my life but have never regretted a trip I have taken

 

Spent my first bonus on paying off my undergrad loans. Spent my next three bonuses on my MBA loans lol. I spend a lot on nice restaurants and going on nice trips. I went to the Paris Olympics in July, and it was surreal. Going to Puerto Rico next spring and staying at a nice AirBnB with friends. It's nice to just have money in the bank to do what you want. 

Also get some clothes that could be considered investment pieces. Instead of getting a $60 dollar jacket from Zara, spend a bit of money on a quality one which will last forever. 

 
[Comment removed by mod team]
 

I spend basically my entire base and bank the bonus and any carry checks after spending a small chunk of it on something fun like a watch or travel. As a junior guy this is the least amount of money you’ll make in your life. So long as your cost of living increases slower than your earnings you’ll be good. I won’t be moving apartments for a good while which should keep my rent reasonable.

 

Clothes / a Rolex / Traveling / Built a home office / and rest on tech stocks, that was years ago

since then every other salary and bonus went into stocks unless I was planning to spend it on something else

incentives trumph ethics
 

If you can learn to live an upper-middle class lifestyle that just your base salary can afford you (in NYC) at all levels, you can retire early and wealthy.  It's a balance between enjoying yourself now and investing in your future.  If you want to drop an extra 20k every few years on a watch or something because that's your hobby, then fine - it comes at a cost for later but no point in dying the wealthiest you've ever been. 

 

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