My situation:
I had a 22k windfall 2 years ago that essentially wiped away my student loans with about 5k leftover. Before that I was working full time, relying on the food bank for food, barely scraping by and sinking further into debt anytime unexpected costs arose. I started using Mint a year and a half ago and learned a ton from reading subreddit which has improved my money management drastically.
My pay increased from 37k to 48k this year, and for the first time in my life I'm in the position of wondering "what do I do with this extra money, and what can I afford?" without worrying about being in debt.
This is what I have right now:
- $0 Debt (I occasionally use my CC and pay it off each month)
- Current Savings - $6,595
- Edward Jones Account that I don’t touch - $3,241
- Money held hostage by American funds that I’m planning on moving to a Vanguard IRA - $2,800
My current one year goal is to build my EF to $15,000 by early 2018. I also want to move my American Funds assets to a Vanguard IRA as soon as possible and start contributing to that.
My short term goal is to move from my terrible/embarrassing 1 br apartment ($605 a month) to something more comfortable ($750 to $850 a month), and frugally replace 75% of my furniture of the next 3-5 months.
Rough monthly breakdown with new salary
Total take home each month - $3321.69
- Groceries & Restaurant - $580 (monthly average from last 6 months)
- Rent - $605
- Internet/TV - $30 ($60 split with downstairs neighbor)
- Gym - $40
- Auto Insurance -$70
- Health and Dental (52% of this is covered by work via a bonus in my second paycheck of the month, this is included in the take home amount I provided above) - 369.5
- Natural Gas - 25 to 70 depending on time of year
- Electric - 20 to 40 depending on time of year
- MISC (cat food/grooming, clothes, haircuts, gifts for friends/family, books, travel/vacation, entertainment, auto expenses, health/grooming expenses, unexpected expenses that aren't "emergencies") - 400-500
- Savings goal - 1070.00
Looking at this, the only thing that jumps out at me is that I should shave about $150 off of my grocery/restaurant spending, and maybe do a better job of tracking the $400-$500 I spend in MISC. It seems like if I improve my budgeting I should be able to comfortably afford up to a couple hundred more a month for a better apartment.
Long term?
I'm also wondering about my long term goals beyond my one year goal of building the $15,000 EF.
Another aspect of my finances is that I currently have a smartphone and laptop computer through work, so I'd need to have money to replace these items if I left. Should I build this into my EF and increase my goal?
A dream of mine is to save up 10k-12k and purchase video production gear to make short documentaries. I've been working in corporate video for 7 years, so I have the skills and knowledge, and beyond this being a hobby I'd also be able to create work to use in a portfolio that would help me out when applying to jobs in the future.
I also would like to save enough cash to sell my 2005 ford focus (worth roughly 3.5k-4k last time I checked KBB) and purchase something newer in the 8k-10k range.
I work at a small company that seems to be growing and there's a chance I could receive another raise at the end of this year, although probably not as significant of an increase as I received the beginning of this year.
Thoughts, advice, criticism?
Submitted February 11, 2017 at 01:25PM by the_person_who_was http://ift.tt/2lB5UXz
