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My dad's 50/30/20 advice nearly wrecked my budget for a whole year
He insisted I put 20% into savings each month no matter what, but when my car transmission blew in August and I had to pull from my emergency fund, the system collapsed because I was never accounting for real life costs, so now I'm trying a zero based budget instead has anyone else found the 50/30/20 rule too rigid for unpredictable expenses?
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ryantorres1mo ago
Changed my mind reading this, I always thought that rule was foolproof until now.
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bell.felix29d ago
Yeah I gotta push back on that a bit. In my experience the 50/30/20 rule is more of a guideline than a hard rule, and it actually works fine if you treat the 20% as a flexible target instead of a strict demand. @ryantorres the trick is you build the emergency fund first with that 20% and then once you have 3-6 months covered you loosen up. Your dad might have been too rigid with it but the framework itself isn't broken, your mileage may vary though.
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