Preface: 11 months ago I finally decided to deal with my financial situation after being on NEET status/basement dwelling at my parent's place for more than a year. Started this journey with $19k in CC debt, $21k in student loans, and about $4k in my account. I've just made my last payment on the CC debt about two hours ago.
TL;DR : Semi-stable gig based job with low taxable income, but decent effective income. Needs your opinions on how to allocate the extra ~$1.3k/month between 4.5% student loan and slush fund (or something else).
Long version: Like I said in the TLDR, my job is gig based. These gigs lasts a minimum of 30 days but can go upward to 50 weeks in a rolling 12 month period. While there's no guarantee on how many gigs I would get/how long they would last, I can safely say that I would be working for a minimum of 9 out of 12 month for the next two years (and hopefully get a more stable position either internally or externally by then).
The pay is nothing to write home about, BUT, I am considered on travel status while working. Which means pretty much all of my expenses are covered. These include anything from hotel bills to gas money for my rental car (also paid for).
Assuming worst case scenario where I'm sitting at my parent's house doing nothing I don't work overtime and am in a middle of nowhere(shitty per diem), my budget is as follows:
- Paycheck: ~$1.5k biweekly
- Per Diem: ~$850 biweekly
- Living Expenses: $800/month (food/fun/my share of insurance/phone...etc. There's a $200 buffer built in)
- Emergency Fund: $1k/month (currently@ $7.3k/$16k)
- Money to my parents: $600/month (It's a cultural thing I guess)
- Student Loan: $230/month (4 total@ ~$18k)
- Roth IRA: $750/month (currently@ $9k, $2.5k left for 2017)
Which leaves me ~$1.3k left at the end of the month. Now I see three ways going forward:
- Of the $18k student loan I have left, about $5k is at 4.5%. I can commit the leftover cash to this loan.
- Start building my slush fund for the big ticket items I want next year, like a new car or a vacation.
- Split the difference and do 50/50 between the two.
What do you guys think?
Submitted May 20, 2017 at 01:13PM by Wutwutwubsy http://ift.tt/2q4hYmF
