I'm going to preface this with one thing I have never had money before. I grew up in a household where you didnt always have shoes or electricity. So to me,having enough money to pay your rent meant you were doing good.
I remarried last October. My husband works as a cook and made around $500 a week net normally,has been getting more like $400 lately because of winter slow down. I work taking care of disabled adults and my check should be about $550 gross but I work a ton of overtime. Lately I've been consistently getting 25 hours of overtime every week which brings my pay up to almost $1100 for the week. Sometimes I get more overtime. I haven't worked less than 48 hours since I started,but generally I get at least 56hrs,and for over 2 months I've been getting 65 to 70.
I get paid biweekly,he is weekly. Approx $250 is deducted out of my check for health insurance for the family. Rent is $1200.We pay $60 each after taxes for our phone service. Approx $70 Internet and $75 electricity but obv that can vary a tad. We each have a credit card with a low balance and about $30 bill each monthly. This was meant to help us repair our credit after our divorces,where we were left pretty screwed. We do not smoke or drink. We do use a laundrymat right now but are looking at used washers to buy to do laundry at home. Laundrymat is like $30/wk
Until this month we were paying a lot of other bills but paid them all off.
We each have student loans and have to work out new repayment plans,and I'm looking at buying a new (used) care bc my van is dying and I need it for work.
Coming up June,I'll be eligible for my work retirement plan. It said it does 1.5% but I don't know much about how retirement plans work.
Im 27,my husband is 31 and we have 4 kids between us (none together,from previous marriage). My ex is supposed to pay $500 child support but is 4 months behind so I haven't had that income.
I really want to work on- Improving credit so we can buy a modest home for our kids. Saving reasonably for our retirement Creating a nest egg. I am not good naturally at saving bc i never had anything to save.
Im looking for advice on budgeting, creating a savings plan etc. I'm not naturally good at this and I'm finding it so overwhelming I cant start. Being poor my whole childhood etc has made it hard for me to make good long term financial plans because I have no experience with them.
Submitted March 12, 2017 at 12:53PM by kaseysospacey http://ift.tt/2niY9af
