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The Personal Finance Podcast
How Much Should Your Spend on Rent (By Income!)
00:34:12
In this episode of the Personal Finance Podcast, we're going to talk about how much you should spend on rent by income.
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This episode of the Personal Finance Podcast. How much should you spend on rent by income? What's up everybody and welcome to the the Personal Finance Podcast. I'm your host Andrew, founder of MasterMoney Co, and today on the Personal Finance Podcast we're going to talk about how much you should spend on rent by income. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money newsletter by going to MasterMoney Co newsletter and you can respond to any of those newsletters that come out every single week. And don't forget to follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast player you love. Listening to. This podcast on and if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review on your favorite podcast player. Cannot thank you guys enough. You can also watch this episode on YouTube if you go to the Andrew Giancola YouTube channel, we are there as well. If you want to watch this episode, we actually have the outlines on YouTube. As we're talking through everything that we talk about on this show today, we're going to be diving into how much you should spend on rent by income. This is a very, very important episode that you need to understand really it comes down to how much you should spend on housing overall. Now if you have never run the numbers when it comes to your housing situation, we have a free tool called the Total Cost of Ownership Calculator. And in the TCO calculator what you're going to find is a Should you go and buy a house and how much does it cost you to actually own a home? Because most people don't understand that buying a house really isn't the best financial situation. In a lot of different scenarios, especially at the time of recording this, in most locations, buying a house is actually a worse decision decision than renting. And so this total Cost of Ownership calculator is actually going to help you find and figure out that calculation by running the numbers on your largest purchase. It is the most important thing that you need to do. We run the numbers always on rental properties when we go and invest in rental properties. Yet most people don't run the numbers when they go and buy their house that they're going to be living in for the next 30 years. It is one of the craziest things. We developed a tool for free to help you do that. So make sure you check that out. Just go to MasterMoney Co Resources and you can find the Total Cost of Ownership calculator. Really, really great stuff there. Now if you're trying to decide should I buy, should I rent? This is really going to help you. But like I said, in most financial situation, renting is the way to go, which is why this episode is here today. Now, one big thing we're going to note is we're going to talk through a in this episode how much you should spend on rent. And we're going to talk about kind of the max you should spend and then some of the other numbers that you can think through as well. Then we're going to be talking through ways at each income level to be able to save on rent. And I'm going to give you a bunch of ideas that's going to help you try to generate ideas on ways to save on rent. And we're also going to give you some tips and tricks when it comes to renting and negotiating your rent, those types of things. Now, why is it so important to control your housing costs? Well, housing is by far one of the three biggest things that you need to control. If you can control three numbers, then you will be able to spend a lot more everywhere else. So if you can control housing, if you can control food, and if you can control transportation, those are the big three. The fourth and fifth are caveats, which is daycare and healthcare. Those are extra costs that maybe you have incurred depending on what stage of life that you are in. But the big three are housing, food, transportation. Everybody needs those three things. And if you can control those three things, you could spend a lot more everywhere else. Now, it's really important to control housing. Why? Because a, you have budget flexibility. Have you ever heard the term house poor before? Well, there's a lot of people out there who spend way too much on housing. And if you spend more than 30% of your gross income on housing, you've got yourself a problem. My friends, we need to make sure we keep it at 30% or less unless we are willing to to a reduce transportation and food costs to make up for the difference. Really important to note it gives you that budget flexibility so that you can do more things that you want in life. I want you to spend more time on vacations. I want you to spend more dollars towards your hobbies or things that you want to do. I want you to be able to go out to eat whenever you want and read that menu from left to right instead of right to left. I want you to be able to have freedom with your money. And the only way to do that is to make sure you can control that housing expense. And so it gives you that budget flexibility. Secondly, it gives you financial security. Making sure that you can control these big, big factors gives you financial security so that you can take extra dollars and put them towards your freedom. Number three, it helps you achieve financial independence. Every single financial independence book that you will ever read will talk through why it is important to control housing. Because you can take so many extra dollars and you can put them towards financial freedom. And the more dollars you can shovel there, especially early on in your life, especially when you are just getting started, the more dollars you can shovel towards financial freedom, the faster you'll be able to retire. If you're listening to me right now, you're Sitting in the middle of a cubicle and you are super stressed out. And you also are paying way too much in rent and or on your mortgage. That is why you are so stressed out. We need to figure out ways to reduce those costs and I'm going to give you a bunch of tips here today. And then lastly, it opens up the opportunity for flexibility in life. And what do I mean by that? It gives you opportunities to switch careers. Maybe it'll give you an opportunity if you're making enough to go part time because you're controlling that housing cost. Not all of your money is going towards housing. Maybe it gives you an opportunity to take on more passion projects or reduce your stress. If you have a bad boss that comes into your workplace, you got that six month emergency fund, your housing costs are under control, you can switch and have flexibility. You could switch jobs and have flexibility. You don't have to take that. You can either be a prisoner to your rent and or you can have some flexibility by making sure you control that variable upfront. Really important stuff to do today. We're going to teach you exactly how to do that. If that's something you're into, let's get into it. All right, so the first number we need to know is the rent to income ratio. And if you've never heard of the rent to income ratio, this is just what percentage of your income are you spending on rent every single month? Now when I say income, I am talking about your gross income. So if you make $100,000 per year, then it's going to be $30,000 or less per year spent on rent. That's really important to note. So when we think about this, we want to make sure that it is 30% or less. Now, 30% is the max. In fact, I'm going to talk through this today. I'd rather you spend even less in your rent to income ratio. Specifically, if you want to achieve financial independence really quickly in 12 years or less, then you need to be at the 20% mark. If you want to achieve it in 20 years or less, you probably need to be closer to that 25% mark. And then if you are willing to kind of work for a longer period of time, keeping it 30% or less is really important. Now I know at which time I am recording this episode. I am recording this episode. When rents are at all time highs, housing costs are at all time highs. We're also dealing with folks who have the highest credit card debt of all time. All of these factors make it really, really difficult right now to afford housing. And we are also in a crisis at this point in time where we don't have enough inventory. And so what happens when supply is down but demand is really high? Prices go up. It's basic economics 101. And so because that is happening right now, you may be saying to yourself, how could I ever spend less than 30% of my gross income on rent? And so what I'm going to do today is I'm going to talk through some of these saving strategies at every single income level that I want you to kind of think through and I want you to spark ideas. I don't want you to have this mindset through this episode. You got to change your mindset here. I don't want you having this mindset that I will never be able to do this. This is just not something that's possible. I cannot do this. Instead, what I want you to think through is, how can I. What are some things that I can implement in order to reduce some of these housing costs? It's going to be super important. I know how tough it is out there. I get it. But at the same time, we're going to work through this thing together. So. So let's start with each of these income levels next. And first, we're going to start at the $30,000 income level. And so when we're talking about the $30,000 per year income level, we're going to look at the different rent levels. So if you wanted to spend 30% of your income on rent, that'd be about $750 per month you could spend on rent. Now, if you're making $30,000 per year and you are in New York City, you only have a couple of options if that is the case. Now, if you want to spend 25% of your income on rent, that's about $625. And if you want to spend 20% of your income on rent, I.e. $500 of your gross income. So at this $30,000 level, there are a couple of things that you need to be doing. Number one is you need to consider seeking subsidized housing. Because at the $30,000 level, depending on where you live, that could be easy to find housing. You know, at 750 to 500 most places in America now, that is not easy whatsoever. And so you need to either seek subsidized housing, if that's the case, or. And this is going to be something that I will recommend to anybody at any income level. So when I talk about this this should not be shocking, is you can get a roommate. Now, over the course of the last 20 years, something has shifted in society where people have started to think to themselves, I don't need a roommate. I'm going to live on my own. Because everybody else is living on their own. Whereas if you go back 20, 30 years, I think of the show Friends where they have Joey and Chandler live together, Monica and Rachel lived together. And really, getting a roommate was a very normal thing. It was something that you just did because this was a way to have affordable housing. Now, at the time of recording this, it is much less likely to meet someone who is single and out on their own who has a roommate. And for some reason, that has shifted over the course of the last couple of years. So if you find yourself in a situation where it is very difficult to afford housing, then consider getting a roommate. Now, if you've had roommate horror stories in the past, trust me, I get it. I understand that that has happened to people. But I want you to think through some of the best years in your life. And when I ask that question, most people will say some of the best years of their life was in college. And so when you think back to college, why was that? Some of the best years of your life, typically you were living with someone. You were living with roommates who had, like, interests to yours. And you could go out and spend a lot of social time with people with the same interests who are the same age. And you could go out on a whim and go do something fun any night of the week. That's one reason why people love college. It's not because you enjoyed your psychology classes or your economics classes. Maybe for some of you academics out there, it was. But for a lot of people, it's the social aspects of college. And so roommates will actually give you that social aspect if you're someone out there who's single and enjoy camaraderie and being around people. Now, a lot more of us are introverts now. We want to spend time alone. But also it is worth the time and energy to save those dollars because those dollars are so incredibly valuable. If you look at our Wealth Builders Matrix and if you go to MasterMoney Co resources, I show you by age what every single dollar is worth if you invested those dollars based on whatever rate of return you get. It is one of my favorite resources out there because it shows you the power of investing your dollars no matter what age you are and what each dollar is worth. And if you start to look at that thing, all of a sudden you're going to realize, man, if I'm saving 750 extra dollars per month because I went out and got a roommate, it'd be unbelievable the amount of money I'm saving. And so here's an example of this. Let's say for an example that you are a 30 year old and you got a 7% rate of return in the stock market, okay, over the course of the next 30 years. Well, if you're a 30 year old with a 7% rate of return, every single dollar that you Invest is worth $11. That is a huge, huge, monumental difference to your end goal. If every single dollar you Invest is worth $11. Now let's take out the old calculator really quick and let's do a little math here. Let's say you save $750 a month by getting a roommate. 11 times 750 means every single month you're saving $8,250 just by deciding to go out and get a roommate. This is the power, and this is why I love the wealth builder matrix. Because you could run calculations like this and be like, well, is it worth $8,250 a month to have somebody else in my house? And hopefully they have like interests to me and so we can get along and have some camaraderie going on. Absolutely, yes, in many cases. Now the question is if you want to go out and get a roommate. And I did not expect to go on a rant on this, but I am going to now because we're already deep into this is you need to actually vet the person, you need to do background checks, all that type of stuff. And really the best way to find a roommate is by word of mouth or people you already know. Now maybe your friends socially and so maybe you would have like kind interests and enjoy spending time together in a setting where you both are under the same roof. So let's give a couple examples here. Let's say, for example, you are really into fitness. And if you're really into fitness, it would probably be helpful for you to find someone else who is also into fitness. So, hey, you can achieve your goals together. You guys are eating healthy meals at the same time. It helps motivate you. And one of the most important things in your life, you can go to the gym together and lift. There's all these different scenarios that makes that an enjoyable experience for you or at least a tolerable experience so that you could save $8,250 per month long term. And so this is why I think it's so incredibly important for you to make these decisions. This is why your housing is such an incredibly valuable cost. Because think about this for a second. 8,250 times 12. Let's just say in that same exact scenario that is $99,000 that you'd be saving per year in retirement. So you'd have an extra $99,000 if you took all of those dollars and invested them instead. My friends, this is a huge deal to make sure that you figure out how you can do this. So use the Wealth Builders matrix. It is one of my favorite tools that we have. And it's just a PDF document. You can go look through it and just think through a bunch of scenarios there of how you can actually save money. So consider sharing with the roommates. That's one of the points I had. And then obviously you can also opt for smaller spaces. I will never ever tell you to go to a space that is less safe. I want you to be in B class A class neighborhoods if you can. I don't want you to go into neighborhoods that are less safe and that you put yourself in jeopardy. That will never be the case. That is a big reason why you want to build wealth is because you want to make sure that you can take your family out of those situations and take yourself out of those situations by building wealth. The last thing you want is to be in an unsafe neighborhood or a neighborhood where your children are around people who do not have the same goals, dreams and aspirations as you. It is very, very important to protect those things. And so because of this, we want to make sure that we are building wealth so that at least we can stay on pace with what our goals, dreams and aspirations are. So really important to do that stuff. And then obviously is making sure you budget carefully. Budgeting carefully as to not having a high rent to income ratio is going to be really, really important. I think that is huge, especially at the $30,000 level. At the $30,000 level, I would say most of you, if not all of you need to be in a space where you either have roommates and or if you can find something for $750 or less per month, then fine. But most likely you're going to need to have a roommate and or house hacking something along those lines, let's jump to $50,000 a year next.
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All right, so number one tip here is if you can find locations where you are negotiating with the landlord directly, the number one thing I want you to do is learn how to negotiate your rent. And I think at every single level people do not realize that you can negotiate your rent. And this is a really, really important factor. We have episode if you search the personal finance podcast how to negotiate your rent, we have an entire episode dedicated to negotiating your rent. But you need to learn that skill. That is a really important skill because you could save hundreds and hundreds of dollars and or you can get incentives added to your lease that would significantly help your living situation. So what I want you to do is I want you to if you are searching for housing over the course of the next six months and you know that's going to be something you're going to be doing, I want you to start to build that skill now. In learning how to negotiate your rent, learn about the things that you can negotiate. From adding parking spaces to added amenities, to first month free, to last month free, to a reduced security deposit, to negotiating the actual price of rent, which is the most powerful thing that you can do overall. And so sure, you're not going to be able to negotiate a massive, you know, 75% discount, but what you will be able to do is if you see a place that you really love that is 1450 and your budget is 1250, if start to have a conversation with that landlord and say, hey, I can afford 1250amonth, is that something you'd be interested in? Now, for a landlord, that could be the entire gap for their cash flow. And they could say no, but it's their job to say no. It's not your job to say no. And so always making sure that you are negotiating rent in every single scenario, you should always be negotiating a B in just keep that in the back of your head. Always be negotiating. That's going to be really important when it comes to choosing a rental is figuring out how you can, you know, bargain for that rental. Now this is especially important if you have really good credit, if you have a really good rental history. Landlords are looking for that and you can say to them, hey, I will do X, X and X. If you reduce the price of rent and if you have a lot of cash on hand, maybe you say, hey, I'll pay the first two or three months in rent if you give me a reduction of rate. And if you have a big cash inflow, let's say you could pay for the entire year, maybe you say to them, hey, give me a 20% discount, I'll pay for the entire year right now. Or give me a 30% discount, I'll pay for the entire year right now and I'll sign a two year lease. Extending the terms of your lease, paying a little more upfront, those types of things can be enticing for certain landlords. And so if you're negotiating directly with them, it's really important. Now if you're negotiating with a property manager, it's a little more difficult, but it could still be something that you can get done. So I think you got to think through that process and how you want to do this. And then if you want rent at 20%, it's going to be $833 a month. Most likely you're going to have a roommate in that scenario. Now one other thing that you can do at this level is if you Live in maybe a city area and you're looking in an area that's like right in the city. Maybe you look outside in the suburbs a little bit and you can find a location that's just not in the middle of it, but it's right outside of there and you'll be able to save some money if you do something like that. And then always when you're looking for rent, make sure you have an emergency fund in place using the 1, 3, 6 method, as you could have some additional expenses as you start to think through this. And at the $50,000 level, you do not want unexpected expenses. Now let's look at the $70,000 per year level of income. At 30% of your income, $70,000 per year makes housing a lot more affordable. And I think a lot of locations, I'm even thinking of where I live, where it's really hot in Tampa, the market is really hot in Tampa. You could still find housing affordably in this price range. So 30% is $1,750 per month. At 25% it is $1,458 per month. And at 20% of your income, it is $1,167 per month. So some saving strategies in this level is find some really, really nice apartments or locations that are maybe in older buildings. What I found is like, for example, one location near me that a lot of people want to live in is downtown St. Petersburg, St. Pete, and in downtown St. Petersburg, which is right outside of. I live in the Tampa area. That's right outside of there, in downtown St. Pete, you can find more affordable rent in some locations in older buildings because people are less likely to want to live in the older buildings than they want to live in the nice, fancy brand new high rises with all the extra amenities. So if you don't use all those extra amenities, this could be something that could be of interest to you. Secondly, try to negotiate a longer lease. If you can get lower rent. That's the huge factor that I want you to do at every level. But if you can do it at this level and you know you want to stay there, that could be really, really important. And then thirdly, if you can find a well connected suburb that gets you the same results for a little bit less, that can also be really, really powerful. If you could save a few hundred bucks, you could find a really nice place that could help you in that range. So at the $70,000 level, you're getting much better housing than maybe somebody at the $30,000 level, it is a huge, huge difference to start to make. 70,000, I think at 70,000 is when you can start to maybe find places a lot easier than most people can. Now let's get to 90,000. All right, so at $90,000 per year, this is where you can really find some good stuff at no matter what level. And so if you're trying to achieve financial independence, I would say to you, try to get your income to 90,000 dol or above. Why? Because I want you shoveling as much cash as possible towards financial independence. And if you're going to get those really high savings rates for someone who wants to retire maybe in 10, 12, 15 years, then what I want you to do is reduce that housing cost closer to that 20% level. And this is where you can start to see that that may be able to come to fruition at $90,000 and above. So at 20% of your income, that's 1500 bucks a month. At 25% of your income, that's $1875 per month. And at 30% of your income, it is $2250 per month. Now, a couple of things to note. Here is one. Prioritize essentials. Now, a lot of these brand new apartment complexes, they're going to have a bunch of amenities and luxuries that you may not use. And a lot of people are paying for these luxuries when they go to these fancy apartments, but they never use them. Say for example, you are a person who goes into work every day and comes home. Well, a lot of the brand new luxury apartments are going to have co working spaces inside of them. And if you never use that, well, if you go to that apart, you are still paying for those coworking spaces. Secondly, I just saw a luxury apartment with podcast studios inside of it. The last thing is we need is more people with podcasts. That's a joke since I'm a podcaster. But anyways, if you're not a podcaster and you're paying for a luxury apartment with podcast studios inside of it, that makes absolutely no sense. Some of them will have a bunch of different fancy pools. Like I just saw one with a rooftop pool in here in Tampa. If you're not into that stuff, there is no reason for you to pay for those additional amenities. So just be careful that you're paying for unused luxuries and see if there is something where even if you go to one of those places, hey, I'm not going to use any of these amenities. So Can I have a reduced rent and you just don't give me access to these amenities? Something like that could be a negotiating point. Not sure if they would do it, but that could be a negotiating point. Another one is if you work from home, you're single, or you're flexible, and you want to live in different locations. Here's an idea for you is you could move two locations during off seasons and, you know, rent in those locations for three to six months. So here's a great example. The summertime here in Florida is the worst time in the world to be here.
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Why?
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It is so incredibly hot and humid. It is absolutely miserable. It makes me want to move every single year the same thing. If you're in middle of Montana in the middle of winter, most people don't want to go to Montana in the middle of winter. But if you enjoy snow, sports and different things that you can do in the middle of winter, then you can move to some of these locations during the off season and save on that. And the cool thing about this is you could test out different locations. You can go one summer to Georgia, one summer to Arizona, one summer to Nevada, one summer, you know, you could keep moving around, and then one winter in Michigan, one winter in Indiana, one winter in Vermont, and you could see which locations that you like. So it's a really interesting way to kind of find cheaper properties in the off season, especially if you work from home or you run a business from home. I think it's a really cool way to kind of explore and see some interesting new things. Next, let's get to above 100,000 at the $110,000 level. All right, so at the $110,000 level, if you wanted to spend 20% of your income on rent, that'd be $1,833, which I think is very doable in a lot of locations in the US Maybe not New York City or California, but it can be doable to a lot of other locations. At 25% of your income, it is $2,292. And at 30% of your income, it is$2,750. Now, here's a couple of money saving strategies. Number one is just note, luxury is not always better. If you opt for functional over fancy, that could always be the best choice and the practical choice where you can get the amount that you're spending on housing a much lower by opting for functional over fancy. Number two is research and compare. This is the point in time where you need to really Start researching and comparing where you're at the 30, 50, $70,000 level. You're just trying to find the best possible place for the max price that you can spend. When you're getting to this level, you can start to actually do some comparisons and say, hey, this place is charging 2750 for a one bedroom, one bathroom condo, whereas right down the street they have a three bedroom, two bathroom apartment that is twice as big for the same exact price. Which one do you want to look at? And you got to think of utility costs, those types of things. And as you start to get to some of these bigger places, what are the additional costs associated with it? Because utility costs will go way up on some of these locations. If you're looking at older buildings, if you have a larger location, if you have a big yard, you have to do the lawn care or do they do the lawn care? Those types of things are really important to make sure that you are researching. Next is see if you can use a broker and a broker can help you find locations so you're not spending so much time searching for apartments that could be really helpful. And then continuously keep reassessing your housing needs and making sure your income lines up and your priorities line up with the house that you have. If they don't, then maybe it's time to move. And you tried the fancy place, but maybe it's just not worth the time. The energy, the money at the $150,000 income level, that's the next one that we are doing. At 150 now you can really kind of have your pick of the litter for a lot of different scenarios, even in a lot of different cities. So at 30% of your income it is $3,750. At 25% of your income it is $3,125. And at 20% of your income it is $2,500. This is where you really want to get serious about the total cost of ownership calculation. Is it better off for you to go buy a house or are you better off at renting a house? This is where it gets very serious. And thinking through that consideration now, maybe you don't want to deal with their toilets or maintenance or any of that kind of stuff. And you want to continue to rent forever. More power to you. That's amazing. I have no issues with that whatsoever. I do not think buying a house is for everyone. And so I think that could be something that could be huge. Another one is to look at corporate discounts. Investigate if your employer offers corporate Discounts. Some corporations do this now for housing. And when you're at the $150,000 level, in a lot of scenarios, they can help with stuff like that. Now, I'm going to say this to Everybody. At the $150,000 level is even when I was making $30,000 a year, I tried to always keep my housing around the 20% of my gross income level. And because I kept my housing at that level, I was able to invest a lot more money. And so if you're in a scenario where you are making $150,000 per year and you feel like you're still living paycheck to paycheck, I want you to look at your housing and say to yourself, is there a way I can get to that 20% level so that I can invest more dollars? Because when you are at 20% of your gross income, it really does make a big difference on how much you could put towards financial freedom. And that's what I want for you. I want you to become financially free. You make this higher income. I want you to take that higher income and put it towards freedom. You work so incredibly hard to get here. Why waste it by just throwing it away at rent every month? So really important to think through that as well. And then the last one we're going to do is $200,000 per year. At the $200,000 per year income level, at 30% of your income, you could spend five grand a month. At 25% of your income, you could Spend 41, 67. And at 20% of your income, $3,333. There should be no location in the country that you can't find that you can't meet those parameters. And really, you should be close to the 20% of your income range. I'd rather you be there in most scenarios than anywhere else. So these are how much you should spend at rent per location. Again, in my experience, I try to get as close to that 20% number as I possibly can. The max you should be spending is 30% of your gross income in falling within that range. As long as you fall within that range and you keep everything else in check, my friends, you will be a okay when it comes to housing. Look, I hope this episode helped you guys out and I hope you enjoyed this. If you found money saving tips, please let me know. Do you guys have any other money saving tips? Let us know and I'll share it with the audience as well. We want to lift each other up, help each other out. That's the entire goal of this podcast is to give you as much value as we possibly can. Cannot thank you guys enough for listening to this week's episode, and we will see you on the next episode of the Personal Finance podcast.