Can someone provide budget suggestions after reviewing the following:

Monthly salary: 4400 (after 401k contribution)
Rent: 1500
Utilities: 160ish
Savings: 1000
Groceries: 300
Leftover: 1440 (generally all of it or most spent on going out restaurants/bars/fun stuff)

Additionally I have <1 yr of experience. I’m in between wanting to save more/trying to enjoy the city as much as possible

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As a someone now 3 years out from undergrad. Yes saving is important. No you don’t need to max out your 401k right away. It is a disproportionately large amount of your salary at the very early levels of your career. What I did and I am happy with is:
1. Put into 401k up until matching
2. Build a rainey day fund of ~2 months
3. Start contributing to max out the Roth 401k
4. Use the leftover to continue building rainey day fund
5. As you get promoted and raises, don’t change the ‘fun budget’. Rent might go up with inflation etc, but out the raises / your bonus into savings.

This let me really enjoy the first few years when all your friends are around and you’re still bright eyed and energized! Starting early matters yes, but almost every consultant is wellll above the ‘average’ American and will be in the top 10%

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***3 should be Roth IRA. It is more flexible than the 401k!

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Balance saving and having fun. Think $1,000/month is pretty great at that salary (and after 401k).

How much are you contributing to 401k - are you implying you max it out?

In general, look for total market or S&P 500 funds. They have these at any major brokerage like Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, etc. so the actual fund name is different but effectively the same in terms of diversification and performance.

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Additionally, I’m in the process of setting up a rainy day fund before I start putting larger sums of money into my brokerage account. Still need to learn more before I dive into investing though

This is smart - definitely do this first to get yourself a few months of expenses but once you have that you can do the other items recommended. It doesn’t all have to happen at once.

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Increase 401k contributions to the max. The more you save earlier the better.

I’d agree as soon as you can afford it. Op said right now they are putting in $150 (per month I assume). That equates to ~ $55k after tax. Docking away $20k of that (little less because of taxes saved) is a huge %. I didn’t start maxing out my 401k until I made a bit more for comfort.

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