Alrighty please help me evaluate where I stand. 23 years old graduating in December with a lower-tier STEM degree, I don't plan to start a career with my degree so I'm most likely going to be in the same fiscal situation after graduation as I am in now.
Currently working two jobs, making about $750 a month on average. May make some more during the summer as I am working full time on top of taking summer classes. Rent is covered for me until December.
I built a budget from scratch in Excel a couple weeks ago and am pretty comfy where I have it. Any feedback is welcome. I also have a financial advisory meeting set up in a couple weeks but would like to check in here first. I've read a ton of the FAQ, made a budget, started a 401k, decided to track my money better, changed my habits etc. Now I would like some personalized opinions.
My current situation is the following:
- 15% of paycheck is going directly to company matched (3.5%) Roth 401k
- Starting to build a $1000 emergency fund by going to bank tomorrow to open a savings acccount and also a new checking account to get $300 free by setting direct deposit
- Will open a second saving account for actual savings
- Paying off cc debt with the snowball method to reduce minimum payments prioritizing higher apr cards
I currently pay the minimum payment on all cards except the one I'm working on zeroing. About $500 to go and I pay roughly $100 a month towards it. I have never missed a payment and have an excellent credit history other than being at 90% utilization. Score is about 640 but everything is ranked "Excellent" or "Good" (age of credit I can't control) except for utilization percentage.
Questions:
- How should I prioritize my extra money right now? I.e. pay off all high % cc debt before saving for retirement/emergency fund, save for future purchases in general, etc.
- What else can I do (other than obvious cuts on unnecessary spending - working on it) or what other recommendations do you have?
In other words what am I missing that I can't see from my perspective?
Submitted May 27, 2017 at 02:35AM by MedicTech http://ift.tt/2s64wzq
