I Will Teach You To Be Rich: No guilt, no excuses - just a 6-week programme that works

by Ramit Sethi

The 60% Solution You’ve heard me talk about the 85% Solution, which focuses on getting most of the way there — until it’s “good enough” — rather than obsessing about achieving 100%, getting overwhelmed and ending up doing nothing at all. Well, Richard Jenkins, the former editor-in-chief of MSN Money, wrote an article called “The 60 Percent Solution”, which suggested that you split your money into simple buckets, with the largest, basic expenses (food, bills, taxes), making up 60% of your gross income. The remaining 40% would be split four ways: 1. Retirement savings (10%) 2. Long-term savings (10%) 3. Short-term savings for irregular expenses (10%) 4. Fun money (10%) The article has been widely distributed, although curiously, none of my friends had heard of it. My Conscious Spending Plan relates to Jenkins’s 60% Solution, but it’s more focused toward young people. We spend a huge amount on eating out and going out, whereas our housing costs are lower because we can share apartments and rent more comfortably than older people with families.