<prompt> Human: Im starting my first job soon. Starting salary of 62,000 with 5,000 signing bonus. Ill get paid twice a month. Im trying to figure out what I can comfortably spend on rentutilities so as not to put myself in an early financial bind. Ive read multiple rules of thumb from 1 weeks take home pay to one third of your income. I dont really know what I should be spending and thought you guys might provide me with some guidance. Ill be living in a big US city so rent is pretty expensive. Again, I want to live within my means but dont really know whats appropriate to spend on rent with my income. Any advice for me?  <response>: First, congratulations on the salary! I also went to a good school, but I did liberal arts nonsense and will be lucky to make that much for a long time. Your hard work has been worth it! Second, put a nice apartment in the backseat for a while! Youre very young, and a 5k signing bonus is a healthy amount. You stated that you have 13k in student loans and you only plan to pay 200 per month. Pay more than that, ideally as much as you can stomach. My girlfriend had public loans from school amounting to about 24k and paid half off in a year with a smaller salary than yours and a pretty high rent. The amount that that is saving her in the long run compared to a standard 10-year repayment plan is amazing. If your loans are private, all the better reason to pay down your loans now before they accrue. Lets assume that your 13k in loans is on one of the most generous interest rate plans: Perkins loans at 5. Repay in 10 years, and youre paying 3,546.05 in total interest. Repay in 5 years, and youre paying 1,719.53 in total interest. Repay in 1 year, and its only 354.77 in total interest. For every bit higher your interest rates are, this obviously makes a bigger difference. All figures based on this sites calculator.Paying down those loans has another benefit: it opens doors if you want to change careers. You might love finance but hate your sector of finance; you might get sick of finance entirely. By paying down debt, you can be relatively unencumbered in your career. Plenty of my undergrad friends went into finance, and while some stayed, most switched out after paying down debts and making investments including those who made a lot more than your salary. Prepare for the possibility that you might want to change down the road. 