How much rent can I afford?

I am 20 years old, and make right at $60k a year.

I am moving out of my current apartment in a not-so-good neighborhood this august, and I want to move up to the North Garland area(Naaman Forest Area).

The apartments up there run about $800/mo for a nice 1br/1ba..and I estimate Utilites to run $150/mo at most(I use a programmed thermostat)

My BMW payment is only $200/mo, and I put away about $500/mo on my Credit Cards, but they should be mostly paid off this fall.

These apartments are right across the street from my gym, and only 4 miles from my office. Its close to everything, in a nice neighborhood, and close to work....is it a good deal and can I afford it?

unless there is something else that you are not revealing, it should be enough.

if you make $5,000 per month gross, you should take home around $3,750 after taxes. with that, you can definitely pay rent of $800, utilities of $150, credit cards of $500 and your car payment.

what you have not accounted for yet is: insurance, food, savings, entertainment, other expenses.

My friend told me a good rule of thumb about rent:

Your monthly income should be at least double what your rent is.
If you're going to pay 800 a month on an apartment, you should be making at least 1600 a month. Especially since you have car payments to make.

Judging by your income and your debts, I would say you can afford the apartment.

If we take $60k and see how much you make a month, it comes to 5000/mo.
Taking your monthly payments (800+150+200+500=1650) and subtracting that from your 5000 leaves you with $3350/mo.
There's obviously food, internet, etc. that you forgot or just didn't include, so the 3350 will obviously be less but it's up to you to calculate all of that (since we don't have that info). Also you didn't specify if it those 60k were gross income or not.

If you can keep your rate of expenditures at your current rate or lower, you should be able to afford it. But I suspect you have a lot of other hidden expenses, like parking, insurance, eating out, laundry, and dating can be expensive.

Wow, U r only 20 but somehow already making $60K a year,I'm amazed.Tell me wear to sign up.
But back to what U were asking,rent shouldn't cost U no more than 25-30% of monthly income,yes it may even mean having to get a lesser place further out that's if U want to pay off those credit card bills and also to afford that BMW.Sometimes one must be willing to make some tough choice in life,as often as not,that means choosing the lesser of two evils.Something for U to think about,Yes!?