Can I Afford It?

Now that you've seen how Suze does it, let's do it better!  Start off with something you would like to buy.  

What will it be?  How much will it cost?  You may have to do some estimations along with your research.

Whenever someone wants to see if they can afford something with Suze, she always looks at a snapshot of their finances.  Make some estimates based on a point in life.

Here are some suggestions: (my example)

1.  How much do you have in savings?  How much do you think you could reasonably save in 10-20 years? (remember our 'rule' about how much to save of your income?)

2.  Investments - You'll have to guesstimate... how much will you have reasonably put away in investments?

3.   Retirement - Again forecasting 10-20 years from now, how much will you have realistically put away for retirement?

4.  Assets - house(s), cars, businesses??? (use current loan interest rates)

5.  Debt?  Not very easy, but to make this realistic, include credit card debt, student loan debt, personal loans, car loans, mortgages, etc.