eat instant noodles, find a room-mate to share your rent, search google for a lot of money saving tips..

why the hell is your cell phone $80 thats expensive..throw it away

start a personal book-keeping.. GNUCash is simple and user-friendly. Keep track of every penny you spend and every bit withdraw from bank. Do this for a month, and see where the loose ends are. This worked for me and for the last few years I am on positive.

 

_x

Here's how I see your budget.

Rent: $450

Utilities (including your cell phone - your current rate is too expensive, btw): $150

Food (pack your lunch): $200

Transportation (I am assuming you are wise enough to take public trasportation): $100

Entertainment & Eat Out: $100

Miscellaneous : $100

So that brings your total expenses to $1100

Which means, you should be able to save $500 per month.

Obviously, it is not much.  You will be able to accumulate $6000 a year. 

You could take up a second job (preferably in cash) and increase your savings.

But you don't want to be in this state for more than couple of years at most.  So, my suggestion to you is to bone up on GRE or GMAT and aim for graduate school so that your long term earning potential will be higher.

 

How the hell you make only $800 in H1B. The minimum payment of H1 is $45K which should bring atleast 1310 in 2 weeks after taxes.

 

Nepali Thita

 

 

About making low on H1B, when I applied, I stated the fact that I work as an assistant and my undergraduate degree allowed me to work as a junior making low income, but being eligible for H1B since my work was legitimate.

On my expense list, I do have $200/month for my tuition fee reimbursement. Its interesting to read your suggestions. Please keep up.

Plan your grocery shopping, plan the menu. Try to take lunch to office from home which itself will save a lot of money.Try to use cash for a month instead of credit card, it will kind of give you an idea of where you spend unwanted money. When you have to pay cash from your pocket, it is little difficult to indulge in impulse buying.