That can’t be an all-the-time thing anymore. Dropping $300 on a bill every couple of weeks \u2014 it starts to add up.<\/p>\n
I work as a software engineer, with an annual base salary of $159,000, and I live in Brooklyn, New York City, where I was born and raised.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn feels like home to me. It has been a little disheartening to see the cost of living rise<\/a> over the years. My family’s first apartment was rented for $900. Today, my apartment is up to $3,450.<\/p>\n That’s for my two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment with included parking that I share with my fianc\u00e9e. Since I make more as a software engineer<\/a> than she does as a school teacher, she contributes a flat $1,000, and I cover the remaining rent and around $500 a month of utility bills.<\/p>\n Devonte Duncan and his fianc\u00e9e.\u00a0<\/p>\n Courtesy of Devonte Duncan<\/p>\n My monthly salary is $13,250, and my monthly take-home after tax and other contributions is $7,752. My only side income is from my YouTube channel<\/a>, Dose of Devy, where I post day-in-the-life videos. At its peak, I was earning up to $400 a month. Now that I haven’t been posting as often, I earn around $100 a month. The upkeep is pretty cheap.<\/p>\n My relationship with money is a bit strained. I’ve had to learn the skills for dealing with it on my own. I didn’t understand how credit scores<\/a> worked, how loans worked, or what it would even look like to buy a home, because nobody in my family actually owns one.<\/p>\n How I went from dropping out of college to making six figures<\/p>\n I was a physics major at City College for three years before I realized my experience there was becoming unsustainable. I took out a loan for about $2,000, because I was already working to pay for other expenses. The situation took a toll on my GPA, and I lost my merit scholarship.<\/p>\n That was when I realized it was time to drop out and find something else, leading me to the Marcy Lab School, a year-long software engineering fellowship. I didn’t tell my parents because the last thing you want to tell a bunch of Caribbean immigrants \u2014 who came here so their kids can have a better life \u2014 is that you dropped out of college<\/a>.<\/p>\n Eventually, they found out, and I graduated from the Marcy Lab School. My first job out of the fellowship, I was making almost six figures.<\/p>\n Even then, my mom was still like: “Oh, but you still need a degree. They’ll probably pay you more.” Yet, I don’t have any plans to go back to college. My plans are just to figure out how to make more money.<\/p>\n Interested in being featured in a Business Insider video? Show us what it costs to make a living in your city by filling out this form<\/a> or contacting a reporter at mros@businessinsider.com.<\/p>\n My expenses, from transportation to groceries and hobbies<\/p>\n I own a 2019 Subaru Outback that I am currently financing because I traded in my old 2021 Tesla Model 3 to Carvana at a loss. My monthly car payment is $450, insurance is $208, and I spend around $90 on gas. I also spend around $50 a month on the MTA when I go into the city, since I don’t want to pay congestion pricing or street parking.<\/p>\n Devonte Duncan driving his 2019 Subaru Outback.\u00a0<\/p>\n Business Insider<\/p>\n Typically, I’m spending $600 on food, that’s about $400 for grocery shopping and $200 for eating out. When I was shopping for myself, eating out cost almost as much as groceries because food had gotten so expensive. Now that I’m in a relationship, cooking at home is a little cheaper because the meals we make last us several days.<\/p>\n I have a short but fun list of hobbies. The first, and most expensive, is building my passion project, OpenBorough.NYC<\/a>, a civic dashboard that keeps New Yorkers informed about local politics. The total I spend can go up to $300 a month. I also spent up to $300 on video games over the last three years.<\/p>\n I don’t typically have a hard budget when it comes to travel. Earlier this year, I spent $3,000 on a two-week trip to Japan<\/a>. I also went to a Bad Bunny concert in Brazil. That did cost a pretty penny, but it was worth it.<\/p>\n I have a Planet Fitness membership for about $40 a month, but I don’t actually go because the building I live in now has a gym. One day, I’ll get around to canceling that membership.<\/p>\n Devonte Duncan on his trip to Japan.\u00a0<\/p>\n Courtesy of Devonte Duncan<\/p>\n Putting friction between me and my money<\/p>\n Back when I was at my peak spending \u2014 paying for everybody’s dinner, going on crazy trips, and buying random things like an electric skateboard \u2014 I realized I had racked up a lot of debt. I kept fighting with lifestyle creep<\/a>.<\/p>\n I decided to take out a debt consolidation loan for about $30,000. That runs me about $947 a month. If I had kept paying the credit cards, I would have paid nearly 25% interest on each. The consolidation loan is about 17%, so I’m paying much less interest overall. In two years, it will be completely paid off.<\/p>\n The lesson I took away from racking up debt<\/a> was that just because you make more money doesn’t mean you have to spend more money.<\/p>\n Devonte Duncan and his fianc\u00e9e cooking in their kitchen.\u00a0<\/p>\n Business Insider<\/p>\n Since I am not super financially disciplined, I developed a system that does the work for me.<\/p>\n With every paycheck, I set aside 10% in my savings account, which comes to about $700 a month. In my mind, the savings account does not exist. I do better when I put friction between me and my money. I then have another bank account I use to pay my bills and transfer my monthly budget for things like food into a separate account. From my 401(k)<\/a>, I get a 4% employer match, and I max it out at also 10% contribution. Annually, I’m saving about $15,900.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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