Can't save money - is this just the cost of 'starting up' my life? personalfinance

Me: Just started working full-time in July, take-home $4500/month. This should be more than enough to be saving aggressively, but it's just not happening. Am I missing something or is this just how the cards are falling?

Current budget:

Rent: $1700 (I live in the DC-metro area).

Utilities: $180

Groceries: $200

Other Food: $150 - My office doesn't have refrigerators or free coffee, so I tend to buy lunch. I have cut out buying coffee at work.

Social Events/Entertainment: $100

Gas: $100 (25 min commute to work one-way).

Insurances: $140 (car + renter's)

My cat: $50

Gym: $60

Relationship: $350 - I am in a long-distance relationship, and my SO and I split plane tickets and often like to go out and do nicer stuff when we are visiting each other (~once/month).

This comes out to ~2900, which means I should be putting away ~1600 a month. I was able to build my emergency fund to about $4.5k since July, whereas my target is $14k. But the last few months have just been expense after expense:

• I used my signing bonus and my total savings from college and the first two months of working to completely pay off student loans ($6.5k).


• My car, which was a hand-me-down from my parents, required $1k of maintenance in September and another $1.3k this month.


• I ended up having a host of medical issues over November-December that cost me $900.


• Holiday shopping also had to happen, which ran around $500.

Additionally, my office is very corporate (suits every day) and I have been building a business wardrobe to the tune of ~200/month.

I guess my questions are these:

1. Where is there room for improvement in my budget?


2. Is it normal to have so many of these large expenses when you are starting out in the real world? How do I handle them while trying to build my emergency fund, which will handle them in the future?


3. At what point does it make more sense for me to get rid of my car and just get a CPO/used one?


4. Am I doing something wrong?

Sorry this ended up being long -- I've been a long-time lurker here and am finally getting to the point where I would appreciate some advice.

Thanks!

Submitted January 09, 2015 at 10:05AM by throwa_whee http://ift.tt/1zYpuga personalfinance