How Much Rent Can I Afford on My Hourly Pay?

July 26, 2016 | By MFA Editors AuthorMy First Apartment

2017 Update: You can download our new Printable Apartment Budgeting Worksheet and use it to estimate your rent and budget for all your expenses. The basic target rent formula that landlord’s use is annual before-tax income divided by 40. When you are on a straight salary estimating the number is easy. However, if your are…

9 Easy Ways to Make Extra Cash

January 2, 2016 | By Sarah AuthorMy First Apartment

As you move into your first apartment, hopefully you have taken some time to budget your expenses, plan for each month, and add some savings to your account. If not, now is the perfect time to start (for tips, click here). If you’ve found yourself slacking to add money to savings, or just want a…

Affordable Rent Calculator

September 20, 2015 | By MFA Editors AuthorMy First Apartment

Click Yes or No below to open calculator. Description of the My First Apartment’s Affordable Rent Calculator: 1.) The above easy-to-use calculator uses the formulas from this post for calculating your maximum affordable rent. (Note: If you are paid hourly, you should also check our post How Much Rent Can I Afford on My…

Beginner’s Guide to Managing Debt

August 15, 2015 | By Sponsors AuthorMy First Apartment

Sponsored Post By Allison Videtti Debt, in some form or another, is a part of being an adult these days. Want to go to college? Most of us need to take out a loan. How about buying a car? You’ll probably want loan for that, too. Interested in being a homeowner one day? You’ll need…

How Much Rent Can I Afford on My Income? – Two Simple Ways to Estimate

June 4, 2015 | By MFA Editors AuthorMy First Apartment

Update: You can download our new Printable Apartment Budgeting Worksheet and use it to estimate your rent and budget for all your expenses. We get questions all the time about how much rent should you pay based on your income. For example, here is a recent comment from Alen: “I have found a apartment for…

5 Rules for Splitting Finances with Your Significant Other

February 15, 2015 | By Audra AuthorMy First Apartment

Although we tend to think of living with our significant others as completely different from living with a non-romantic roommate, there are many areas where both experiences are very alike. First of all, there will be times when you and your live-in boyfriend/girlfriend have arguments and disagreements. Oh, and you’ll definitely discover some of his/her habits…

How to Interview Potential Roommates

February 10, 2015 | By Contributors AuthorMy First Apartment

This totally makes sense: forewarned is forearmed — especially if you have a roommate. Living with someone, much like moving in with a significant other, may just as well be called taking the plunge. Finding the right roommate is quite a challenge. It does not matter whether you’ve been friends forever or total strangers because…

How to Recover Financially After Overspending During the Holidays

January 24, 2015 | By Audra AuthorMy First Apartment

If you’re looking at your bank account and your January credit card statements and wondering what happened to all your money between the holiday season and now, you’re not alone. For some reason, during the holidays, I get really generous and really frivolous about actually sticking to a spending limit I can afford. Ever year I convince myself that…

How to Keep Track of Your Monthly Expenses

March 10, 2014 | By Christa AuthorMy First Apartment

Our fellow blogger Alex just wrote a post about all the expenses us as apartment renters should be aware of. Every expense he listed rings true, no matter what your situation is. So the question now is, how do you keep track of them all? How can you continue to pay your bills and fund your…

Living On Your Own: 7 Tips For Avoiding Budget Woes

October 21, 2013 | By Audra AuthorMy First Apartment

When you finally make the big move into your very first apartment, you are pretty unaware of the big financial hit you are about to take. No, that doesn’t mean you’ll be broke for the rest of your life nor does it mean that you can’t make it on your own. However, it does mean…