We pay ourselves $36k/yr. We wanted to do $24k, but our accountants said this would be an issue. $3k turns into $2.2k after taxes, UI, etc.

I think I want to bump this pretty soon; I spend more than my $2k/mo take-home on car payment + gas ($1k+), food ($500-$1k; I buy expensive/healthy groceries), exercise ($200-500/mo), (free rent), minimal toy/entertainment budget, etc. -- if I didn't have savings and credit, living on $2k/mo would be a big distraction.

Founders making $120-150k+/yr early seems like a distraction too, but I don't think $60-90k/yr is totally unreasonable in the Bay Area.

We were also told that paying any developer less than 82k/yr (who is not a founder) puts you at risk of him being considered a non exempt employee, and thus needing to pay overtime, etc.

its a little more complicated than that..

in the USA if you do not pay more than $1600 per month salary for those who work overt time that computer engineer is an automatic non exempt employee by one particular Federal job act law and there are some more laws on top of that..

California is substantially more aggressive, hence the 82k amount. It varies based on job description. I didn't really dig deeper; this is what I pay out (excellent) law firm and accounting/hr firm for. I was totally unaware of any pay lower bounds other than hourly minimum wage before they brought it up.

Exercising costs $500 per month? Get a bike an ride it down the street. Or even a $50/month gym membership.

I pay $42.50/mo for a 24h fitness membership, $80 per session 1-2 times per week with a personal trainer (same person the CEO of reddit uses, heh). I could probably do without the trainer but it has been a good investment so far.

I would like to join a rock climbing gym, maybe do crossfit, and krav magazine at some point, too.

I probably expend $250++ per month in ammunition, too, but I am drawing down a stockpile so I don't have to move it.

$500 on exercise could cover multiple bases as entertainment, socialization, and dating if you add in stuff like climbing, dancing, surfing, etc.

Same here at picplum. Enough to not have to worry so much about personal finances that it distracts you from building a company. My cofounder once said (half-jokingly), if you are a founder paying yourself enough that you can save money each month, you're doing it wrong. I'll have my out-of-state student loans forever..

As an other extreme - for my first startup, I raised $15k and only used up $13k over a year and a half. Though at that time my blog was a small stream of passive income.

Do you guys pay rent out of the business? (As in, an expense like leasing office space, etc.)

One thing I do try to do is expense everything that is reasonable.