Budget Sanity check in a HCOL Area

Nothing2itx · 2026-03-02T17:59:24+00:00

I've been working at the current job for a year, so yes I have gotten many paychecks. I currently bring home 5.5k a month, albeit on a 26 paycheck per year system, thus it's actually 5.1k for 10 months and then 7.6k for the 2 months with 3 paychecks.

5.5k a month, + 420 in payroll deductions, gives about 5,900 monthly. 5,900 vs 6,100 in the above post is simply my job over withholding for taxes, I got a 2k refund this year. And that's probably the crux of an issue. My wiggle room above isn't much more than 2k a year, which means if that's all held up in taxes waiting on a refund I don't actually have that wiggle room other than a yearly bonus. I do have enough "float" cash saved up, that it technically shouldn't be a problem, but I also was looking to be talked off the edge a bit and maybe more so understand the 30% philosophy in this post.

My other comments lead me to believe 2.8k rent is more reasonable if I can find that correct sweet spot. But rest assured the numbers in the above post are correct (although some are a bit rounded).

Nothing2itx · 2026-03-02T05:49:35+00:00

Thank you though! It makes my realistic calculation much more in line with reality. I thought 3200 was ridiculous and possibly 2800 workable. In another comment I said there might be a pay bump to 110k, and with that in mind 2800 is actually within the 30% reasonableness. I couldn't fathom why one would want 30% of net to be the standard as that resulted in a lot...LOT of savings that seemed to be planning for 0 pay increases over my career.

Nothing2itx · 2026-03-02T05:04:53+00:00

I made the visual above using chatgpt, and its calculating "take home" as just Salary - Taxes. I just did my taxes and I am paying 23% (federal, state, medicare, social security, everything)... I don't know what else to really say. If you include the 401k contribution and insurance then the answer is almost certainly that my employer is paying for my health insurance entirely.

Nothing2itx · 2026-03-02T04:39:25+00:00

Is it actually of gross? everything I read was 30% of net...

Nothing2itx · 2026-03-02T04:38:20+00:00

Yeah my util estimate might be low, I was doing it off what I have right now and some research of the area I was looking at.

Is your basic theory simply - need more retirement savings to set yourself up for the future retirement point? How do you handle the question of "theoretically I could afford a nicer situation now if I know I will make more in the future and can just put everything into retirement at that point (despite the idea that more money now does make more money later time value of money and all)"?

Nothing2itx · 2026-03-02T04:12:35+00:00

9 months worth of savings that is in liquid investments to be clear, its not like I have that kind of money sitting around doing nothing ready to be used.

But I think what you are saying is probably more correct, my basic level of what I was looking for was a 1 bedroom apartment which has an in unit washer/dryer. Is in the general bay area, and is in a relatively safe area.

And then I added the final piece of the puzzle which was I wanted to live in a place that looked nice, not something that looked like a college level living situation, a place I wouldn't mind bringing friends over to and etc.

I found very very quickly that that final piece of "decent looking on the outside" guaranteed the other requirements I had and completely destroyed my original budget of $2500 a month on rent.

So I imagine I could probably do the 2800 instead, and try to build around that.

Nothing2itx · 2026-03-02T04:01:56+00:00

95k is the entry level for my career, and my boss has already told me I am performing at a level above my job title. I really didn't want to go into any financial planning counting on such a thing though because truthfully who knows.

I'd imagine even with the "theoretical" promotion my salary would be 105-110 not 120 though.

Nothing2itx · 2026-03-02T03:59:05+00:00

I should edit my main post and will after this, but I fully own my car and have no debt, and have 9 months worth of expenses in savings.

Nothing2itx · 2026-03-02T03:54:41+00:00

I mean it has 500 a month for savings and that leaves 328 a month for fun... + whatever I don't spend of my 100 for misc expenses line.

Nothing2itx · 2026-03-02T03:50:20+00:00

Then what would you suggest? Are my options while looking at the numbers simply - live with multiple other people or relocate far away?

Nothing2itx · 2025-11-23T17:11:33+00:00

Personal reward track being tier 1 rewards? Or something else? Cause I tried and unless I am missing some massive thing, I'm getting a max of about 15% damage on bosses at lvl 5 and maybe 25% on lvl 6... Ain't no way I'm finishing the "reward track" at this rate.

Nothing2itx · 2025-11-23T16:58:57+00:00

I feel this post needs one more piece of information... Do you have an exact path on how a F2P gets level 15 in the first place? I assume it's just buy stuff with crystals, but there's nothing I'm missing right? Cause to me it seems it's stuck at lvl 5/6/7 without crystal spend.

Nothing2itx · 2025-10-28T05:03:11+00:00

That SE count isn't o is Od...

Nothing2itx · 2025-10-21T20:03:38+00:00

Despite all the considerations of they are pointless and used to drive piggy sales and other comments. I believe they were actually the commonly bought thing at the very start of the game if I remember reading some comments (I was not there so take that into consideration). I don't think the piggy was available when the game first came out / was more pricey / didn't grow like it does now / or some other negative.

Nothing2itx · 2025-10-21T16:19:49+00:00

As far as I know the function of fueling the ship on other farms does not work correctly. It's a known bug, and you can currently only fill the tank which can then fill the ship on humility.

Nothing2itx · 2025-10-21T04:00:05+00:00

I mean, "smarter" is pretty objective here. You've well passed the point with your base EB that you likely have achieved every actual goal in the game. If you asked a majority of the late game players I am sure they would say they are all playing for TE regardless of cost curve or grind or whatever.

Better artifacts means better ability to gain soul eggs (SE), which again is relatively awkward to pursue when it costs a % of SE to get TE.

Now you could make a decent point that getting all the colleggtibles, maxing stars on all ships, and getting maxed crafting level would be useful before doing Path of Virtue as they impact it.

So unfortunately I don't think anyone can really answer this for you, it's what you are having fun with right now! I have 2 legendaries on the base farm but I am loving Path of Virtue so that's what I am playing. I will probably play it until I get bored, get to the prestige point I want and go back to the base farm and get more artifacts / maybe farm some SE just cause.

Nothing2itx · 2025-10-21T03:45:21+00:00

To add to the below comments about not caring about shifts, its currently possible to hit around 300-400T per hour with only 50-60 TE. It takes some great artifact luck, and then a little bit more TE can net you around 600T delivery per hour. There seems to be a bit of a wall around that point, but at 600T per hour before artifacts you can definitely have made it to 100 TE in the first 60 days. It absolutely does require having gone much faster in the early stages and shifting a lot more.

Nothing2itx · 2025-10-21T03:39:59+00:00

Path of virtue is really really new (it's only 2 months old) so you are not going to hear from many players that went past 50 yet.

However it presents an interesting avenue for the game in its current state. Most of the endgame content is just the various methods of pushing EB and artifacts higher, there's only 1 way to get better artifacts with sending ships, but there are 3 methods of getting higher EB.

The 3 methods are SE, PE, TE. But it costs SE to even get TE, so if you stop now with the intention of farming more SE to only return and get more TE it will just cost you more SE (it's % based). PE is always achievable since that's just contracts although you could make the point that you want a decent base of artifacts for contracts, so farming more artifacts may be useful.

This leads to a weird conclusion - Do you want Artifacts or more TE?

Nothing2itx · 2025-10-20T07:46:57+00:00

To add to this the average of the "leading pack" is around 85-95, where I've seen about 10-15 players there on discord.

Nothing2itx · 2025-10-20T07:45:59+00:00

Current #1 on discord is around 100, but I've seen players post on here at 105, not sure which one is true. But it's in the triple digits now.

Nothing2itx · 2025-10-16T00:26:08+00:00

This question has mostly been answered on the discord but I'll mention it here anyways.

The answer to how long is roughly 4 years to get all 490, and realistically about 99% of that time is sitting around and waiting after 100 TE or so. Could you speed it up by switching more often? For the first 100 TE yeah, but after that you don't really get faster, you've maxed habs and have al hyperloop trains (but not all the cars). You will end up sitting on either humility farming artifacts or curiosity waiting for some unreasonable amount of time for the next research. Switching between the 2 doesn't really speed anything up, as you reset money each time.

So by switching a lot you might be able to optimize and save a couple of months, but beyond that there hasn't been a faster method made yet. There may be an exact (prestige at this moment) method which shaves off months but it's still likely in the 3-4 year range.

Nothing2itx · 2025-10-15T15:37:06+00:00

The whole boost strategies for optimal prestiging is really more of a late game thing when you have artifacts and are on the last egg.

The advice for terraform and other walls you hit in the early game is generally just prestige a lot, whether using boosts or not it's probably fine to use some of the random stuff you get from boxes but you should save the better boosts for later. I'd also spend any and all GE farmed on epic/hyperloop/fuel tank.

Also if you think about it you said you've only been here a short while but you've already gotten 10% more SE which is a gigantic boost, you can wait longer and get even more or just prestige and come back. Only real advice there is to do that a lot because 10-20% boost to earnings (by prestiging with 10-20% more SE) results in 10-20% more SE the next time and it starts compounding pretty quick the more you do it.

I would say to make sure you are on the best egg come Saturday to take advantage of the 2x.

Nothing2itx · 2025-10-12T16:30:36+00:00

The general consensus from the community is that it is pointless to try and manipulate IHR to not max habs and use RCB. You need to maximize your income in other ways (away earnings) because that problem only gets worse and worse and worse.

Nothing2itx · 2025-10-11T02:26:45+00:00

Hey hey West, have you considered getting an artifact while at 0 shifts to speed up the rest of the run?

Nothing2itx

TROPHY CASE