"I am also 177 CM in height, plan to have 2.5 kids, and plan to get wed to a woman who wears between the sizes of 16-18. Additionally, Layne is actually a mere pseudonym. Please feel free to call me Joseph, or Joe as my 5'3" mistress calls me by" ;P

There's a closer meaning to my user name. Try reading it quickly. Perhaps you will then understand ;P
 

I was wondering why you were lamenting about the fact that you were working longer hours for seemingly lower wages :P

There's a closer meaning to my user name. Try reading it quickly. Perhaps you will then understand ;P
 

saved my first bonus. For my second, I lived in an awful place trying to save money so I spent a large majority of it securing an awesome spot and styled it out. looks effing pimp. planning on investing my 3rd. 20% into savings account 50% into the market 20% into small projects i'm working on, 10% into my wardrobe, 10% into my social life/trips.

 
itsanumbersgame:
saved my first bonus. For my second, I lived in an awful place trying to save money so I spent a large majority of it securing an awesome spot and styled it out. looks effing pimp. planning on investing my 3rd. 20% into savings account 50% into the market 20% into small projects i'm working on, 10% into my wardrobe, 10% into my social life/trips.

Jesus

 

"My rabbi (mentor) balks when I tell him I’m going to invest my bonus in a diversified equity portfolio so that I am better positioned to buy an apartment the following year. “Why the fuck are you going to worry about trying to save money now? Why struggle to save one dollar today when it’ll be easy for you to save ten in just a couple of years? Spend that cash. Believe in yourself, baby.”

It makes so much sense that I convince a few of my analyst class friends to go to Saint-Tropez the following month, with the sole purpose of spending our entire bonuses in five days. That assignment turns out to be significantly easier than we had anticipated."

Straight to Hell: True Tales of Deviance, Debauchery, and Billion-Dollar Deals by John LeFevre

 

Advice I got from a pretty smart guy, I happened to want a motorcycle at the time: He said, go buy the fucking motorcycle, it'll be part of your bonus, and put the rest into 3-5 high risk, high return investments and enjoy the shit out of your new bike. Next year, take some of the cash to go do something awesome that will make you feel like working is worth it, and invest the rest in high risk, high return investments and so on. Some of your investments are going to work out, some won't, but the winners will far outpace the losers, and you'll have cool stuff and great holidays to enjoy.

 

I rented out the whole "sex island" and all the girls for a weekend. Make sure to bring a tub of KY, a lot of neosporin and a whole lot of pain meds (my back still hurts sometimes) if you want to survive.

"I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. " -GG
 

Straight Jimmy can be a slacker sometimes, that's for sure. Best solution is a doctor supervised cocktail of sildenafil citrate, red bull and erythropoietin to get to peak performance for the main debauchery sessions.

"I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player. Or nothing. " -GG
 

I'm pretty plain vanilla compared to most here, ha. I've primarily spent my salary and saved all of my bonus. Of course, I'm certainly nowhere near the caliber of Illini. He has saving down to an exact science :)

Despite my personal view, I do think both sides have merits. Don't feel the need to save when there's something you really desire to have (not to say burn it all on hookers and blow, but if that suits your fancy do proceed ;P).

A macbook pro you wanted to buy? A new audi? an omega seamaster? a bespoke suit? You can absolutely go ahead and spend on any of these or thereabouts of the same without feeling guilt. Presumably, you will be in the industry for a long time, and will continue to build purchasing power well into your 20's and 30's and beyond as well. The one thing you don't necessarily want is to be in a place 10 years down the line where you have all the money you could desire, but regret not spending on that [ ], which you really wanted that first year out of college but preferred to save instead.

Live slightly below your means and never spend more than you can reasonably afford has always been a mantra I tried to live by, but I'll always opt to splurge on something that I feel is meaningful for me. Doing so ultimately will allow you to experience the best of both worlds :)

There's a closer meaning to my user name. Try reading it quickly. Perhaps you will then understand ;P
 

The way a person uses their bonus reveals a lot about their character and priorities. My first bonus, I gambled away. I was up almost 100K GBP before losing my shirt.

My second bonus, I put mostly in the markets, and since the markets have been well-bid for the past 7-8 years, I've done fine with a diversified portfolio (which I largely didn't touch after making my allocation decision).

My next couple of bonsuses, I invested in a range of early-stage tech companies. I got lucky, and happened to get in early with a company now raising $50M in a growth round. I helped them secure funding from a top 5 VC a couple of years ago, and the payout is going to be substantial when they get acquired.

I took some money off the table in a subsequent funding round from that company and one other so I had some liquidity, which I have largely blown on overpriced suits and expensive business trips I couldn't quite justify on the corporate card. Some of that is now paying dividends from a networking and deal-sourcing perspective, but most has been fairly wasteful. That said, you never know where deals or opportunities are going to originate. And I can write some of it off against my taxes.

More recently, I have been selectively donating a portion of my bonus to charities that I don't just like, but want to work with. Philanthropy is the smoothest path to power in the West, so I would consider this for all of you future rainmakers. The issue, of course, is that transitioning from VP to director or MD (or principal to partner on the buy-side) requires a large network who call you. You don't always want to be beggaring yourself for deals. And you may have noticed that capital is cheap, so simply being able to fund something isn't sufficient to close a quality transaction..

The more you invest in yourself and your network early in your career, the more opportunities will flow your way. Or, you could save for that down payment on that overpriced apartment you won't own for more than a couple of years hoping the market doesn't turn before you want to upgrade.

 

I come back to this movie Margin call 2008, time and again and I like the boardroom scene the most.

In the scene at the roof top of office building with Peter and Seth, he says that out of the 2.5 million that he made last year, he spent on Tax: 1.25 million = 50% Mortgage: 300k = 12% Sent to parents: 150k = 6% Car: 150k = 6% Restaurant: 75k = 3% Clothes: 50k = 2% Rainy Day: 400k = 16% and Entertainment (booze, etc.): 125k = 5%

I am curious if the breakup of Will Emerson's annual expenses is kind of standard for all the top guys. Cheers! link

 

Save enough to have some liquidity in the event shit hits the fan and then think about paying down your loans more aggressively. Basically, in the event you lose your income, it's better to have the money on hand to service your expenses for a bit than to be debt free but absolutely broke.

Completely unrelated aside, but over the weekend I ditched my iPhone for a Note 8 and now posting is a dream.

 

Last year w/ my first bonus:

  • I put a third into my portfolio, which has a lot of my SA money and some cash my parents gave me.
  • I spent a few grand on some new business clothes
  • I went on a pretty fun trip, had a few nice nights around the holiday season
  • Got the girlfriend some nice shit, aka a classier way to pay for sex
  • Paid off the credit card bills I wracked up during the year

This year's plan:

  • Save and invest a third again
  • Move and buy down security deposit on a nice place
  • I have a watch in mind
  • Some more shit for my new gf, planning on going to the Carribean with her
  • Pay off the credit card bills again - gotta do this or shit gets bad real fast.
 

Maybe we've all gone soft or just grown up - but very glad to see the majority of folks are actually saving their bonus. I've learned in recent years to effectively save my salary and then bank my bonus - it ends up working out pretty well and if you have a decent target bonus as a % of base you can save a decent amount.

Otherwise, to answer the question more directly, about 90% will go directly into savings and the rest will be for something discretionary - whatever that might be i'm not sure. Probably a trip but who knows. I'm struggling to invest in the market at this point in time for a variety of reasons and am focusing right now on adding selectively to some sectors but largely in cash (which has been an awful, awful drag on performance).

And now that I've realized this is about your first bonus - yes, I spent the entire thing on a trip - luckily I think I've gotten most of my dumber mistakes out of the way with money.

 

first off, it blows my mind how you got into banking without knowing how to invest your money....and i dont mean that in an offensive way...just came outta left field...

but if i were you, i would do some research about the different investment vehicles (i.e. REITs, ETFs, index funds, mutual funds, etc.) and get comfortable with each one, and i mean REAL comfortable (i.e. know the rationale behind each one, the pros and cons, etc.)...

i would recommend dividend paying stocks as a starter, one's with a decent yield (say 4-5% or higher), for you to get your feet wet in investing...then probably move up with the risk curve and really hone down on a few companies that interest you (both in terms of the company's financials and their operations/products) and invest in that stock if you really believe in it...you can even go higher up on the risk curve and go for your BABA's and other blue chip stocks.

last advice...like all things in life, never have all of your eggs in one basket...one word, DIVERSIFY.

Good luck

 

freshnoodles

I like your suggestion. I've spent a fair deal of time trying to figure out how I can best build a lower-risk passive portfolio (mostly ETFs and some direct equities).

Are you down for a side discussion? I've looked around WSO for good threads on this subject as well, but I haven't found any.

TBH, most bankers are not great personal investors. Most just either blow it, gamble it, squirrel it away in cash, or mis-manage the money.

As finance professionals it's surprising we cannot do better.

Thoughts?

 

Hey yelloweat, I'm here because nobody responded to this thread after a few days...maybe one of these resources will help you:

Or maybe the following pros can chime in... DD17 AA Bijay-Shah

I hope those threads give you a bit more insight.

I'm an AI bot trained on the most helpful WSO content across 17+ years.
 

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