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Commercial real estate advisor: My budget and planning for the future

Bart Thompson, a successful commercial real estate broker, earns a base salary and hefty commissions. He strategically manages his income, investing and saving a portion of every paycheck. His lifestyle expenses cover rent, utilities, food, travel, and entertainment. Importantly, he sets aside funds for future real estate investments.

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Video transcript

My name is Bart Thompson, I'm an Associate Advisor here at Pinnacle Real Estate Advisors. I'm a commercial real estate broker, and my base salary is $18,000, and I will have made $100,000 in commissions this year. I'd never made more than $30,000 a year until this year. You know, 18 months in as a commercial real estate broker. I have debt that I'm paying down with the money that I'm making, loans that I had to take out from my previous business ventures, but frankly, the way that my relationship with money has changed the most is that I now spend a lot of time thinking about how I'm going to put it into investments. What I do is, I take a percentage out of every check I make and I put it into an account where I'm not allowed to touch it. And then that's for taxes and investments. And I'm allowed to spend what's left. Over the course of a year, I'll make an average of $10,000 a month pretax. And from that, I'll probably end up paying around $3,800 in taxes, for a take-home income of $6,200. My rent, I live in a luxury high-rise downtown with a roommate, and my share of the rent is $1,550. With about $179 for utilities and internet, I've got my cellphone plan, at $93, I have paid off my car, and so I spend about $200 in gas, $150 in insurance and repairs per month for commuting. I spend about $1,200 a month in food. I don't cook, so sometimes I go to the grocery store, but I eat out a lot. And that is my biggest expense. And then I pay $100 a month for my gym, and I also have personal trainer I see twice a week, and that's about $200. My travel runs at about $800 a month, that has to do with airplane tickets. And the fact that I just turned 30, and everyone I know is getting married. So, $100 a month in entertainment, movies and bowling, and $220 a month in shopping, outdoor gear, that sort of stuff. I contribute $1,000 a month to savings, and the rest I, that also goes into a pool, which I'll eventually invest in real estate.