<prompt> Human: Hi guys,So I am a student who will be graduating in the spring and looking for a job. My degree is in engineering and I am expecting based on average salary statistics for my school to be making in the ballpark of 60 grand or so a year.However for pretty much my entire life I have been living on like 10-12 grand. I am used to ramen diets and tight budgets. So I am worried that once I actually move up to having a real salary that I will be a little overwhelmed.So basically I am wondering what percentage of peoples budgets get allocated where. What percent of my salary should go toward housing, toward food, and car payments, entertainment ect, ect. I dont want to under or overspend in any particular area. I feel like part of me will start to feel less constrained by money and spend more in some areas than I should, or part of me might just fall into old habits and spend less in other areas than I should i.e. the ramen diet that has not been all that great for my health the last 3 years Any thoughts or advice?  <response>: Heres what I would do:For the first several years, continue living as if you were going to school fulltime, frugally, and use most of your money to pay off your student loans.Once that is done, allocate 25-30 of your income to housing, 15 to retirement. The rest at this point is all dependent on where you live as costs fluctuate.During this time period, you should also save at least 6 months in an emergency plan as well as to put down 20 on a new home purchase.Save 5K to purchase a used car.Resist the urge to start spending all your money. Resist the calls from your friends to go out all the time and purchase crap you dont need, and resist the urge to abuse your CCs! 