What I Did With My Bi-Monthly Paycheck 3/15/2016
I received my regular paycheck and a bonus check of ~$5,500. In total that was a gross income of $15,446 for 3/15/2016 – so sweet. Since I get a W2 paycheck I had around $5,700 deducted for federal income taxes, state income taxes and payroll taxes.
Emergency Fund
I’m still building this up. Though, I don’t really consider it my EF any longer, more of a cash holding which is part of my balanced portfolio. Now that I have reached my financial independence goal I feel comfortable being a bit less aggressive with my wall street investments. The balance on this account is around $25,000 with this paycheck contribution.
Taxable Investments
Since I am filling up my EF there isn’t much left for me to put into investments. I don’t think it’s fruitful to try to make predictions regarding the market, as of this writing they are down and I expect them to go down further. Since I am not a day-trader I don’t give a rat’s ass which directions the markets go… I’m in it for the long-run and I am betting that in my lifetime the US market will do better than others. So, for now I’ll keep putting money into index funds, I have a personal Investment Policy that helps keep me on track.
Notice how the first 2 categories so far have been about moneys I’m paying myself? I’m perpetually trying to get into the habit of paying myself first. Always, invest in yourself and pay yourself first.
Workplace Contributions
My work puts money aside for me in my pension plan (Cash Balance Plan), matches my 401k at 2% (Profit Sharing Plan) and adds 9% of my paycheck into a Money Purchase Plan. That’s a total of 21% of my gross paycheck that gets invested on my behalf into various funds that I have selected with the help of my awesome FA. I gross around $300k a years so that’s a sizable benefit that this job offers. For the nerds out there who may ask – yes, I can set aside more than the annual IRS limit of $53k because the cash balance plan isn’t included in that sum. Cha – Ching!
My Expenses
Now that I am renting my own office space my regular expenses have gone up. I’ll update my expenses in a future post. I set aside $1,900 from this paycheck for expenses, should be more than adequate.
What have you done this month to reduce your expenses?
If you having a hard time figuring out your retirement accounts who do you go to for advice?