Hello all, lurker here needing advice. Here's the numbers.
I live in the Dallas/Fort-Worth Metroplex as a Systems Engineer for one of the big financial companies. I just relocated here from Maryland for job opportunities. My salary is 125k per year and I don't have kids, currently live alone.
My big expenses are-
Truck payment, 670/month (Rolled negative equity in when my last vehicle died, had no choice sadly..upside down about 12-13k)
Rent, 1400/month with water/renters insurance
Mortgage on my Maryland home, I cannot rent it out or sell it (Long story there that involves family...) 800/month.
Other smaller bills include Car Insurance at 160, Cell around 150, Internet at 45, and instead of having cable I have various streaming things around 40, and power ranges from 80-160 depending on the season, right now its around 80.
Student loans were just refinanced through fed loans and I'm doing the forbearance while I pay off some credit cards. I will have all my credit cards paid off, and a personal loan of 6k (250/month) paid off by the end of Feb. So if I could make that as a time-frame to really start to get my ass in shape, I would love it.
My concerns is that I don't have savings. I don't have a 401k. I don't have liquidity. And though I understand that lots of people are in my shoes and even worse, I feel as though I work to hard to be in this position. I apologize if that sounds vain, but it's my motivation now to do better financially and unfortunately it keeps me up at night, especially when I see my peers, and folks on here doing so well.
The big opportunity now with the 401k is that my employer matches 6%, and I can diversify the allocations, which I know nothing about but I would love to learn.
My goals for 2020 are to-
Start the 401k, hit it as hard as I can
Start saving, as much as I can
Invest, somehow, but into where?
begin to be frugal, I spend way too much on food - fast food, dining, etc.
I appreciate any and all feedback on this.
Submitted December 03, 2019 at 10:46PM by dfwthrowaway85 https://ift.tt/2P9efSO
