So, what're you going to do with all that cash?

That's what I did with the one I got awhile ago.

I'm guessing a fair amount of the first years have been cash flow negative every month for close to a year and have accrued a hefty credit card balance that they'll need to pay off. Assuming you got second tier (30-40K), took 15K out pre-tax for your 401K, and then taxes. After your credit cards, you've got a little bit of cushion for spending - maybe 5-10K.

Taking a well-deserved vacay. and probably squirreling away the rest. Maybe indulge in one decadent clothing item.

Buy a condo and some cheap hookers.

You pay for hookers 'cause you can't get any pussy on your own terms. S-A-D.

game has it spot on, after maxing 401k and paying down hefty CC bill, not left with all that much after taxes. nothing huge planned, dinner at Lugers and an iphone 3G

Get the bacon at Lugers!

By Luger's, you mean Robert's, right?...

really? i am sorry, but how is that?

this is going to be one of those pre-work, i-don't-really-know-what-iam-talking-about-but-would-love-some-insight, back of the envelope calculations:

analysts net $5000/month

of which they get a take home of roughly $3000.

with ~1500 of that going to rent, that's still $1500 for basically everything.

assuming $150/week for drinks/going out and $400 for utilities/extraneous expenses, that's still $500 left over. not much margin for error, but still. maxed out credit cards?

*waits for the inevitable real-world smackdown*

Sorry, I don't think I've spent under 1500 on a credit card bill in...well, ever. You'll spend 150 on a nice dinner with wine (and you'll probably do it at least once a week). You'll spend 100-200 a night at the bars (when your drinks cost 10-12 dollars and you're also buying shots and rounds, with tips, it's easy). You'll buy 10 dollar lunches every day. Your 5-10 dollar cab rides will add up every month. Every analyst I knew that had a semblence of a social life that wasn't getting help from mom and dad was in credit card debt.

And if you are going on dates or have a girlfriend, forget about it. Oh, and if you're ever the kind to indulge in some of the extracurriculars that go on after-hours, that's easily 200-500 a night.

oh boy

and here i am already dealing with college debt. haha

thankfully, almost all pe firms pay bonuses in december, so i am hoping for additional liquidity in 6 months. well, if there is a bonus. haha

One of the advantages of working outside New York is that my spending levels are far lower than what GameTheory quoted above. Yeah, if you're in NYC it's hard to save a lot and still have a social life... and most analysts I know there have indeed not saved much.

Personally, I will be using the money for the vacation I'm currently on (don't ask why I'm still posting on WSO, downtime I suppose...) and for a few upcoming online projects, including additions to my site and some new offerings.

I've saved a fairly absurd amount of money over these past 2 years, mostly because I was outside NYC and had much lower living expenses as a result. Plus I'm more frugal than most other bankers I know (e.g. I negotiate prices on almost everything).

http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/
Mergers & Inquisitions

I love the back of the envelope budgeting...

$3600/month post tax.
1600/month on rent
100/cable
100/phone
100/utilities
100/dry cleaning & laundry
200/lunch
100/starbucks
1000/one night a week of drinking, dinner (middle of the road)
200/wardrobe maintenance, personal clothes

That's $100/month in savings with a lot of CHEAP assumptions.

bad to rely exclusively on the work phone and get a super-cheap or prepaid plan with your personal number?

and all that is before transportation etc. :/

you know what, i am just gonna get a flask and take a swig every now and then. maybe mix it with the club soda i order at the bar. that's gotta make a dent!

I'm amazed at how many people in finance are so poor at managing their money (this isn't a commentary on anyone in this thread, just in general). I guess it depends on your mindset and attitude towards money, but if I don't have the money to do/buy something, I don't buy it. I know many fellow analysts who have heavy credit card balances after a year in New York, and now that bonuses are coming in much lighter than expected they're rethinking some of their previous spending habits...

So would it be worth it to live outside Manhattan? A lot of places in Queens and Brooklyn that are close to subway lines can get you to work within 40 minutes, with much much lower cost of living. What are the pros and cons?

Damn, $1000 a month just for one night per week of going out and drinking/dinner. I guess that is NYC for you, but that would still be $200 or more per outing.

Anyways, call me a lame ass but if I had extra cash to spend I would buy a brand new Gibson Les Paul and maybe a Marshall Stack. I love playing, so that is where my money would go.

Are you serious? Ok we all know every bank pays for our blackberries...100 bucks a week dry cleaning? Even at 2 bucks a shirt (which you can find for 1.39) it doesnt add to 100...3600 post tax? Are you on 60k base or 65k? Mine comes out to be closer to 3900 post tax

You could live outside Manhattan but I wouldn't recommend it if you're in NY... not really worth the savings you might get.

Where you really save is by living somewhere with low cost of living, like Houston.

on a 60k salary, I think that 3600/month # is reasonable. Although you have to also factor in 401k contributions (if you want), health insurance, etc. Net, I get something like 3k a month after all that.

giocatoredoro - i think Ideating did that on a monthly basis, so $100/month on dry cleaning/laundry is not bad.

Most firms will pay for phone service on corporate bberries so you can ex-nay that.

I agree with you to an extent. I was always amazed that people got by living in Manhattan on salaries of less than 60 or 70K. One of my best friends is a teacher that lives in a closet in the LES and somehow still makes it work. The reality is, almost everyone making under that threshold is getting help from their parents. Because while it's embarassing to say that you're scraping by on 100K+, it's no impossible to imagine in a city like New York. And sure, you can take a pass on all the things that come your way, but are you really going to let your budget stop you from having brunch with friends on Sunday mornings (of the few free hours you have off during week) or skip out on dinner before going out? And when it comes time at the bar where it's your turn to buy the rounds, are you going to be the guy that says "well, I've been drinking beer all night, and everyone has been drinking Sapphire tonics, so everyone give me 5 extra dollars?" Doesn't work that way.

The thing is, most of the earnings power in these jobs resides a few years out...i think the above should be reinforce the view that these few years of analyst level banking is about the experience; both professional and living in nyc.

if you want to save money in your early 20s, better to live elsewhere, even with a lower paying job.

I really think the cost of living excuse for not working in NYC is bogus. Yes, its expensive here but down the road having worked at BB in NYC is worth more than the little bit of credit card debt you have to net out with your bonus every year until you start making more money.

What about the ppl who are living in Manhattan and working lesser paying jobs? Alot of the BO ppl I work with live in Manhattan, I don't think every one of them is getting help from parents.

An IB Analyst roughly breaking even on a 120k comp vs a BO guy living off roughly 70-80k... I can't imagine these people are going 40-50k deeper in debt every year and also can't imagine that the difference between an IB Analyst vs Ops lifestyle is 40-50k a year.

1 year of banking in Houston, 55k base:

Income:
~3300/month (no state income tax in Houston)
Expenses:
Rent: $300/month (lived in a newly renovated house near Rice University with 3 of my best friends from High School. They were all in medical school so our hours were similar)
Cell: $80/month
Gas: $100/month (this was 2 years ago)
Utilities: $100/month

Our group was pretty slammed the whole year so I didn't go out very much. I also only worked with one other analyst, so the people I ran with weren't the models and bottles types. I ended up having about $8k in my checking account at bonus time, took home a $50k bonus and left banking with nearly $35k in cash.

edit: that said, I'm happy that I left Houston. It's easier to network in NYC, and the access to big deals is far better. I took Houston because I didn't get any NYC offers. And while I kind of roll my eyes at the thought of a bunch of 23-year-old analysts spending $200 in a club and high-fiving themselves because they're such high rollers, I know I would have been the exact same douchebag had I been given the opportunity.

1. Buy nice dinner for parents
2. Buy nice dinner for girlfriend
3. What's left will be for strippers & blow

I know I requested that deal toy be made with a mirror finish on the back for a reason...

Can't beat buyside in the burbs (just outside the city)...bought a condo 2 years out of college, no cc debt, and flush with cash

But on the flipside you can't beat living in the city and the experience is priceless. Let's just be happy that we are all employed at this point. Everyone have a good 4th this weekend and blow that cash...Uncle Sam is always printing more and making ours worth less anyway

I know that it goes against the BB ibanking culture, but a live-in working girlfriend actually makes it a lot easier to save. Your portion of rent drastically decreases, so does the dining out and going drinking part (and we alternate who pays for dinner and drinks if we are going out together). On a guys night out though I do spend quite a bit more. I also pack my own lunch and make my own coffee in the morning completely avoiding starbucks or pret.
As for the bonus, it's going in the bank and not coming out. As youve probably guessed, i'm quite cheap.

Asia budget: Base: 65K, based on what I hear from my colleagues who are FTs

Monthly income post tax: USD 4550
Rent: Free (Housing stipend = USD 2100 per month)
Food/Drinks: USD 1000 per month
Utilities: provided with rent usually (serviced apartments)
Laundry: USD 250 per month
total dispensable income: 3300 USD
Annual Bonus (First tier): USD 50,000 (first year analyst - this year, last year was 15k higher i think)
After tax bonus: 42,000uSd
Total savings: 42000 + (12*3300) = 81600USD for the year. People here like fancy watches, shirts and cars.
For american citizens in Asia it is less than that but not sure by what amount. I think the first 80,000 is tax exempt.

of course, spending that much on dinner and drinks is a personal choice. curiousmonkey, it all depends on where you want to go. it's perfectly possible to have a nice dinner and/or get drunk with friends for far less than what gametheory says. then again, i suppose that the culture at your particular firm has some sway in where you go/don't go. maybe you don't want to be *that* analyst that goes to *that* lowly bar or restaurant.

regardless, it is by no means necessary to spend that much money to still have a good time.

I'm curious if any West-Coast bankers want to chime in: thoughts on living in San Francisco? I've heard it's at least as expensive as NYC, but what about overall? What I mean is, obviously Manhattan is ridiculously expensive, but once you leave the island, things get a little more reasonable. Is the same true in SF? Perhaps downtown is expensive, but the other districts (Mission, etc.) are cheaper?

I agree, but 150 dollars on dinner is not as unreasonable as you think. I'm not even talking about going to one of the nicer restaurants in the city. Any West Village mid-tier restaurant (Da Silvano, Del Anima) tab can easily run you 150 - which is probably 120-125 after tax and before tip, call it 115 before tax - easily acheivable after appetizers, main course and a couple bottles of wine (split 2 or 3 ways).

true, true. but call me poor, or just plain stingy, but i am not as much of a wine aficionado (at least, in a once-a-week or twice-a-week sort of way), thereby saving me a decent amount of cash. but then, i probably enjoy clothing more than the average person on the board, so to each his own!

No better sound in the world than the "click clack" sound, when my titanium black card hits the mirror

My budget is reasonably conservative, I feel. $2/shirt is not even CLOSE to a realistic price. Dry clean dress pants, shoe shines, laundry, it can easily go above 100.

I think a lot of it is that analysts have a combination of entitlement/what they envision a banker SHOULD live like.

I have a close friend on the buyside, joined out of undergrad, lives and works in CT- dude bought a million dollar house at 25, and switches cars every 6 months (he leases). Even with the mortgage, that dude is liquid.

A lot of people talking about buying blow on this thread... Now, how many actually have seen a line let alone blown one?

bridgewater?

Who here didn't see and do a line of blow freshman year of college?

I have a Carmen Electra sized hole in my nose.

It's a $5-10B fund.

My guess is that a lot of people on this board that go around posting comments on blow as if it were the 70's and 80's just because they want to be like Patrick Bateman or Bud Fox, have never done blow. Im not saying you havent, or the ones that posted above havent, however, I find it more likely that those who have done it (and at great lenghts) do not go around posting it on a public forum. But maybe Im wrong. In which case, smash up, cut up, and snort up my friends.

Don't they do drug tests in banking?

owned

owned

Do you not understand banker humor? I'm guessing most people are kidding. Lighten up. Do some coke.

west coast (LA) banking helps the savings account a little bit because of modestly lower cost of living but it is largely offset by higher transportation costs - upfront cost of car (or payment of a few hundred per month), 100/month insurance and 100-200 on gas.

But night life is not manhattan-expensive.

Only for when you're actually joining the firm. Even then, coke only stays in your system a few days, tops.

Better than Red Bull

Thank you, finally someone who isn't a first year / summer analyst nitwit.

Rest of you guys, try reading leveragedsellout.