Hey everybody, I have done alright thanks to mostly lurking on this sub but could use a bit of financial life advice. I'm 24 with a wife and a 10 month old daughter. I sometimes regret starting a family so early and it has caused strain in the past. However there is no changing that now. We are getting ready to move but as I forecast my future expenses and income, I can already tell that money is going to be tight and am trying to figure out a way to remove some stress. To answer some questions that may pop up as to why we are moving, the apartment we are in currently is in a high crime area, we hate the apartment, there are no amenities to make the apartment worth it so we are essentially miserable. We have spoke about moving before but was nervous about moving out due to increased costs and when we moved in we were told that the last rent survey was a few years ago and it went up by just a few dollars. Well a few months before our lease was up, we got an announcement about rent increases. Our rent went from $565 to $600/month. We both decided that it just was not worth it and we looked around. We found a nicer apartment in a nicer area for $619 a month. It's higher than I want to pay but I figured I was either going to pay at least $600 anyways to stay at our current place or move into a more dangerous/sketchy area which we did not want to do.
Let me go ahead and layout our budget.
My wife is a stay-at-home mom with zero income. I work full-time retail and net about $1620 a month.
My expenses include:
- Groceries $140-$200
- Fuel $140
- Rent $565 (until we move--see above)
- Electric $90-$150
- Cell $150
- Internet $80
- Credit Card Minimum Payments $100 (4 cards $25 each)
- Car Insurance $93
- Renter's Insurance $33
- Moviepass $10
- Netflix $10
- Spotify $5
I can't find a lot of flex room in my budget. I have thought heavily about removing Moviepass because as much as I love it, It's an easy way to clear up some money. Spotify is also a luxury item but I only pay $5 for the student package that also includes Hulu which is used by my wife a lot. I listen to music daily so I feel I get my money out of it. Netflix isn't really used by me at all but my wife uses it every day because she doesn't get out of the apartment much. When I pay off the two phones that we financed I plan on leaving T-Mobile for a MVNO. My wife's iPhone 6 was on it's last leg so when tax refund came in I planned on buying her an iPhone 8 to get her current. They sold me on a BoGo Promotion they had. Unfortunately due to some issues I had, I came out having to pay for both of them although they did give me a $700 account credit for their mistake.
Obviously I have two choices here, I can work on decreasing expenses which I am struggling with, hence the point of this post. I could also work on Increasing income which I am also interested in ideas for. I go to school part-time right now, I work full time, and when I am at home, I'm usually either doing school work or helping my wife with the baby.
TL;DR: I don't blame you, I posted a lot of text. Basically, see my budget above. I am up to my neck in expenses and until I finish college don't see any income increases in my immediate future. I need advice on how to get some breathing room.
Submitted May 05, 2018 at 11:39PM by jonathon8903 https://ift.tt/2FLjjWB
