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.

My income is not my own to share. When I last worked for money (a little more than 9 years ago, I left the job to have Ben), I was making 32K. Then, our rent was $650, but there were two of us paying it. I was probably 6 months from paying off my car (that we still have) and 4 years shy of paying off my student loans (which I finished paying in the year 2000), but I can't remember what the total debt was. It just felt so good when they were finally paid. That first year or so without my pay SUCKED incredibly. Six months after that, we were buying a house. Money is a necessary evil. I hate it.

I am so relieved that baby wasn't thrown from a car that I could throw up. It's all I could think about, all day. I hope that woman gets some help, and that the Safe Haven laws get talked up A LOT in the media. 47 of the 50 States have Safe Haven laws, which basically legalize voluntary abandonment of newborns, at designated sites (usually hospitals, manned fire stations, and the not-so-popular police stations).

My mortgage is 14.2% of gross, but I suppose I get below 12.8% with refinacing to a 30 year note instead of a 15.

I may add that every raise or bonus I've gotten has come with a warning not to tell anybody else, but that's because of intra-work competition and the boss not wanting to hear "Why didn't I get one, too?"

Every time I have stumbled upon salary or bonus information, it has been one of my bosses that slipped. Which usually leaves me sitting there, stunned, and then saying, two days later, "you really shouldn't slip like that because hearing that information pissed me off."

I still haven't decided what to do about the fact that the last slip revealed the brand spanking new assistant makes the same salary as manager level been here three years me.

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

You're not alone. I would say that I am debt-free. I never include the mortgage.

In NYC you can qualify for an apartment if your annual salary is 40 times the monthly rent. I wa shocked the other day when a friend was angsting about moving into a $1450 apartment, because I know she makes at least $75K, if not more. When I was making $57K, I paid $1350, and lived just fine.