So, I work a minimum wage job, making $14.5k a year after taxes. I live in an apartment with my girlfriend and 2 other roommates -- rent is $2k a month, but I pay $300 + all utilities (usually about a total of $450).
I pay $40 a month towards a phone I bought last year. I had 0% interest for 12 months, so I paid a little extra this month to bring my balance down to $0 before they start charging me interest. This is the only line of credit I have in my name -- my mom has me listed as an authorized user on her accounts, but I don't have a credit card of my own. I'm looking at getting one, though, to maintain a credit history.
I also pay a token $10 towards my $8k in student loans -- it's not much, but while I'm in school full-time the government is paying my interest, so at least it's going towards the principal. My mom has promised she's going to pay off my student loans once she sells my childhood home in a year or two.
I have a car with 160k miles on it, and I go to school full-time. I commute about 20 miles a day, round-trip. My grades have been suffering because I need to work so much just to make ends meet. It's gotten to the point where I failed all my classes last semester and it's looking like I'm going to wind up on Academic Probation this semester. This means my financial aid may be denied.
I don't know how people do it. My company will match 4% to my 401(k), but I can't afford to put money into it. I route $100 a week into a checking account for bills, 10% into a savings account for emergencies, and the rest goes into a checking account for food and general supplies.
My financial breakdown looks like this:
In: ~$1,200/month
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$120 - Savings
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$500 - Bills
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$580 - Checking
Of the $580:
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$100 - Gas
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$100 - Groceries
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$250 - Work Cafeteria/Vending Machines/Eating Out
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$130 - Sanity/Fun/Miscellaneous (Movies, books, video games, birthday presents, haircuts, etc.)
Actual amounts vary from month to month (I get 60 hours/week easy in the peak season, then fall down to 18 hours/week if that in the slow season). Usually if things get cut, it's in the sanity department.
I'm spending a little over $8/day on eating out, and I know the obvious answer is that I could make my own lunches to save money. I do that from time to time, but it gets tiring having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (or whatever) all day every day, and the food I make at home isn't very filling. Even if I swapped over to completely homemade lunches at work, that would make my grocery bill shoot up a little, but I'm not entirely convinced that it'll bring my overall spending down all that much -- especially since my girlfriend is usually the one complaining about being hungry, talking me into going out somewhere. We agree to split the tab 50/50, but even so, it doesn't help.
I want to contribute the 4% a paycheck to my 401(k), but that's about $48 a month, which I can't always afford, especially during the slow season when every dollar counts. As I mentioned, I just paid off my phone, so my bills will drop by about $40/month next month. That money is currently planned to be moved into my savings account for now. If do wind up getting a new line of credit, I'd like to have that extra $40 available to help pay that off. However, if I discover I'm 100% sure I can live without it, I'd be okay with putting it towards a 401(k).
Mainly, I'm just wondering how on earth I'm supposed to make ends meet while saving for the future. I don't even know where to begin to put my life in order, especially when I have school to stress out about.
Submitted January 09, 2018 at 06:06AM by EnglishMobster http://ift.tt/2AJLPFv
