Managing a Developer Salary: A Practical Guide

There Was a Time My Balance Hit Rock Bottom

For my first two years on the job, I didn't manage my money at all. Spend when it comes in, hang on with a debit card when it runs out, dip into an overdraft line when things get desperate. My annual salary was 58 million won, but after a year I'd saved just 3.7 million. That's a take-home of 3.9 million per month, and I saved less than 370K across the whole year. Under 30K a month, basically.

One day I saw my bank balance at 123,000 won. Eight days until the next paycheck. 123K. I survived on convenience store bento boxes for several days.

Current Income and Expense Breakdown

My salary is now 64 million won annually. After-tax monthly take-home: about 4.3 million won. I itemized my spending.

Rent 850K, maintenance 120K, phone bill 55K, transportation 80K, food 450K, subscriptions (Netflix, YouTube, GitHub, etc.) 47K, insurance 90K, social occasions/misc 150K average. Fixed plus variable: 1.842 million won.

4.3M - 1.842M = 2.458 million left over. In theory.

In practice, I save about 1.5 million. Where does the other 950K go? Impulse purchases 300K, drinks 250K, taxis 120K, cafes 80K, random expenses 200K. (Writing this list was a moment of self-reflection.)

My Method: Split Accounts

When my paycheck lands, auto-transfers scatter it. 1.5M to savings, 500K to investment, 200K to emergency fund. The remaining 2.1 million stays in my living expenses account. When that account hits zero, spending stops for the month.

The key principle: save first, live on the rest. Do it the other way and you'll never save. "I'll save whatever's left after spending" is a fantasy. There's never anything left. You will always spend all of it.

The emergency fund needs its own account. Without one, any unexpected expense means raiding the savings account. Once the emergency fund crosses 3 million won, the surplus gets redirected to investments.

Failure Story: The Subscription Trap

I audited my subscriptions once and found I was paying 73,000 won per month. Netflix, YouTube Premium, Spotify, Notion, GitHub Copilot, 1Password, iCloud. Of these, 3 I used daily, 2 occasionally, and 2 almost never.

Cancelled the 2 I barely used. Saved 26K per month. 312K per year. (Doesn't sound like much, but over four years that's 1.2 million won.)

But a month later I resubscribed to one. It was just too inconvenient without it. Net savings: 13K per month.

Food Is Where the Biggest Savings Are

Out of 450K in food spending, delivery was 180K, eating out 120K, home cooking 150K. Cutting delivery had the biggest impact. Went from 180K to 80K -- 100K saved per month.

But if you cut food spending too aggressively, quality of life suffers. Eating ramen every day saves money but destroys your health. Finding the "right level" matters, and my floor is 400K per month. I won't go below that.

One Year Results

After running this system for a year: savings 18M + investments 6M + emergency fund 3M = 27 million won. Compared to saving 3.7 million the year prior, that's more than a 7x difference.

No secret formula. Save first, live on the rest. Set up auto-transfers and willpower becomes irrelevant. But knowing this and actually doing it took two years. Knowing and doing are different things.

Current dilemma is whether I can push the savings rate higher. Honestly, it's already tight. I should probably cut back on drinks, but that's a social obligation thing, so it's not easy.