I don't even like to let myself know how much debt I have. I used to make payments all the time without even checking the totals. Now I make myself look at it and keep a running tally. It is depressing and scary.

Quirky Library Story. [link]

I make in Allyson's ballpark, have almost no debt (Thanks to my folks helping out with my student loans), and pay $515 a month for rent.

The last guide I looked at said that rent should be 12.8% (oddly specific) of your gross pay. I'm assuming, that even though salaries vary with location, acceptable %ages do too. I wonder if that was an LA number.

My rent is a little more than a third of my take-home when I do the math - mabye a bit more than that. But I like where I live and I'm [fingers crossed] hoping that ratio changes a bit in the near future. But my numbers are about on a par with Allyson's.

My rent is 14.4% of gross.

The last guide I looked at said that rent should be 12.8% (oddly specific) of your gross pay.

Hah, no, I don't think so. Not in any city I've lived, though I guess Montreal might come closest. Of course, I wasnt' making as much money there, so even then I don't think I could do it.

my family thinks that Tom is Mr. Moneybags because he doesn't have debt.

"Sure the money bags are empty, but have you had to actually cut holes in them and put them on your children as diapers? Then stop holding out on us, ye skinflint!"

I think of "jobs" as formal employment with income tax withholding and stuff

Which is very first world of you.

Or if there's a word for the worldview where only the things you can quantify exist... I don't really think of people who fix up houses to sell or garden in their spare time as having second jobs, even in the first world. Probably all tied up in my same assumption about second jobs being voluntary, which probably hasn't been true here since the 60s.

Why were you dubbed "charmingly Jamaican" for having the second dream job? Is that as inaccurate as "uniquely American"?

Yikes! My rent is 16% of my take-home.

My place is too small at this point. I am very lazy when it comes to finding a new place and moving and all that, which is why I've been in my current place for three-and-a-half years. But I'm thinking strongly about moving back to Wicker Park (way-trendy Chicago neighborhood) when my lease expires in the fall.

eta: rent is 11% of gross....

I'd disclose mine, but it varies depending on how much work I get in a year.

Same here. However, I will say that my current contract gig pays me something like $35/hr.

Our mortgage payment is something like $1200 a month, and I don't remember how much is left on the mortgage other than "a lot". We don't really have any other debt, because Pete is pretty strict about paying off the credit card each month.

Taxes are what hit us hard. Since Pete is self-employed, he loses a HUGE chunk of whatever money he makes due to taxes.

It is so wild how I never factor my mortgage into my debt.

Saying I have $10K in debt is so much easier than saying I have $100K.

I pay a little more than a third of my take home for mortgage and maintenance.