Software Programmer
Now its time to get into the nitty gritty math part of this that I've imposed onto myself as an over-achiever.
Monthly Income
Since this was the most important part of the project I decided to take the least amount of time on it. To find a salary I just looked at a bunch of ranges from 75,000 NZD - 130,000 NZD and just took the average between the two this yielded. 95,000 NZD (53,690 USD). Now we multiply by the tax rate then subtract that from the salary or we can multiply by
1 - .2 = .8(.2 being the tax rate)
to get 95000 * 0.8 = 72,000 NZD (42900 USD) now just divide by 12. This gives us the monthly salary of 6066 NZD (3578 USD) We could calculate all that in this little formula
(Salary * (1 - Tax Rate)) / 12
Housing
Housing is important as its the main thing that separates you from being view as a beggar. I decided to get an apartment since it would ultimately be cheaper, since house costs in new Zealand are out of control to say the least. This is the apartment that I decided to get since it looked good and was close to the average for the area.
Since things are billed weekly we have to multiply by 4, so this is our equation
560NZD * 4 = 2240 NZD (1312 USD) a month.
Transport
To do this I found a calculator online then just kind of guessed at what it was doing and got the same result so that means I've got the right formula. To start I presumed the car cost around 10k NZD since it was a modest amount and I could find many used cars at that price point. Then we use a down payment of 1k NZD this is the minimum amount allowed and if I had went higher the car bill would have been less. Car interest in New Zealand tends to around 10% average which is really just once again the middle point of a range. I also gave my self a payment period of 24 months which was between the 12 - 60 months allowed not the center but I thought it was a reasonable number. This is the formula I used
((Car Cost - Down payment) / payment period) * (interest rate + 1)
now if we plug in we get
((10,000 - 1,000) / 24 )) * (0.1 + 1) = 413 NZD (242 USD)
Car Insurance
I just found a range and put myself on the higher end for the most likely lower quality car. This gave me 125 NZD (73 USD)
- Budget 6066 NZD (3578 USD)
- Housing 2240 NZD (1321 USD)
- Utilities 275 NZD (162 USD)
- Car Bill 413 NZD (243 USD)
- Car Insurance 125 NZD (73 USD)
- Health Insurance 0 NZD (0 USD)
- Food & Other 1000 NZD (590 USD)
- Remaining 2013 NZD (1187 USD)