162: Finance Friday: High Salary - But Nothing to Show For It. Cutting Unnecessary Expenses with Engineer Tracy

As you go further along in your career, you should (hopefully) make more and more money, but does that justify spending more money? Most times, it doesn’t. We’re joined by Tracy, experienced engineer and retirement super saver to go through her budget, expenses, and investment portfolio.

Tracy has had a bit of a struggle with spending and expense tracking. A purchase here, some grocery shopping there, and by the time she added up her payments, she was consistently overspending by close to a thousand dollars, every month! Scott and Mindy have some great strategies to limit this type of random spending, and put your budget in the driver’s seat!

Tracy is also interested in acquiring a rental property in mid/late 2021, but she doesn’t have the cash savings she needs to do it. That doesn’t mean Tracy lacks money. Quite the contrary, Tracy has a very respectable amount of money stored between her different retirement accounts. She was lucky enough to take advantage of her company’s 15% 401(k) match (seriously, 15%)!

Now the question is: does she limit her contributions so she can save up for a rental property or does she continue to max out her retirement accounts so she has a big cushion when she decides to stop working?

This is a very common question we get from listeners and members of the BiggerPockets community. You may be in the exact same position, all we can suggest is to tune in to hear what Mindy and Scott have to say!

In This Episode We Cover

• Why employee match programs are so valuable for retirement investing
• Whether or not you should keep an expensive car loan (or sell and get a cheaper option)
• How to fight lifestyle creep and focus on your spending and investing
• The importance of manual expense tracking and budgeting
• How bigger shopping runs can minimize your food budget every month
• What type of savings you should have before buying a rental property
• And So Much More!

Links from the Show

• BiggerPockets Money Facebook Group
• BiggerPockets Forums
• Finance Review Guest Onboarding
• Dave Ramsey’s Envelope System Explained
• BiggerPockets Money Podcast 04 with Rosemarie Groner
• Waffles on Wednesday Mobile Expense Tracking App

Check the full show notes here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/moneyshow162

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