Hi internet,
I just started my first position consulting full time for a company (1099). I'm getting paid $50 an hour, and have an agreement to charge 40 hours a week. Essentially, I'm being treated as an employee they can fire at any time, though they've "assured me" they expect me to be on long-term and will transition me to salary eventually. Whatever - I know this isn't great and I'm looking for a backup job as we speak, but in the meantime, even with it being 1099, it's the highest paying option I've found by a landslide and it is in a field I love, so here we are.
I'm bringing in $8,000 a month (~$100,000 a year, unless they fire me before the year is out).
I have $80,000 in student loans from undergrad. (A family friend paid off $30,000 of that for me as a loan, and said I can pay it back to them last at 0% interest -- so there's $50,000 of it at 5%-7% interest I'm tackling first).
I'm currently spending my money like this:
Monthly invoice: $8,000
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Save for taxes: $3,000 (I think this is a slight over-estimate, but I figure that won't hurt as a little cushioning?)
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Pay off loans: $3,000
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Bills / other life spending: $1500
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Remaining: $500.00 (this has, so far, been going into an emergency fund - but now that emergency fund has $3000.00 in it, so it's now extra).
My questions:
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Should I be paying less each month towards my student loans (currently $3,000) and instead putting some percentage of that in a 401K or Roth IRA or something? At my current rate, I can pay off the $50,000 loans with ~5%-7% interest within two years... but I am having trouble wrapping my head around the math regarding whether it makes more sense to take longer to pay those off and, in the meantime, have more money growing interest in a retirement account)
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I started a Stash account a few years ago that I've been throwing ~$50.00 a month into. It currently has $2560 into it ($400 more over what I put in directly). Should I withdraw this money and put it into one of those Roth IRA / 401Ks, or should I just leave it and let it grow at this point? If I do leave it, am I correct in thinking that I should no longer contribute anything to it now that I am trying to be more intentional about my money?
Thank you -- very much want to make sure I'm doing the right thing. Thank you for your help.
Submitted March 13, 2018 at 08:08AM by gingersnaplibido http://ift.tt/2Ili6rC
