I've worked this job for 2 months and if all goes well should be inducted into the union at the end of January - my superiors and co-workers seem to all have positive opinions of my work so barring anything unexpected I should get in. (I haven't seen the full union contract yet since I'm still provisional - if you ask me specific questions about it I may not have answers but can ask the union steward at work tomorrow, so e.g. I'm not sure if they offer a retirement fund/401k matching but will find out). I'm making more money than I ever have when I was working at my parents' company in the past and now have more money than I know what to do with. I have a checking and savings account at my local credit union and have been dutifully adding a few hundred out of each paycheck to the savings since right now other than gas and car insurance/repairs I have basically no expenses (I have offered my parents to help with the household expenses but they declined to charge me rent on the condition that I make progress towards moving out eventually - which I have been by getting a job, but now that I have the job I should move out some time soon, hopefully within the next year).
I'm probably going to get a big tax refund this spring since I was unemployed almost all of 2019 before getting this job in the fall (my job at my parents' company was essentially as a part time temp worker and I only worked when someone else was absent, which didn't actually happen much since it's a small company). My total income from 2019 was only maybe 5k or so, so I should get nearly all of what I paid in income taxes back since my company was withholding as if I had been working all year.
What should I do, if anything, to prepare to move out? I will not be able to afford rent in this area without a roommate unless I break the 30%-of-your-income rule, as the cheapest rent I'm seeing around is more like 40+% of my income not including utilities, and electricity in this area isn't cheap either. How do I estimate my expenses to create a budget, since I haven't really had any expenses before? I almost wish my parents would let me help with their expenses because then I would at least have some numbers to work with for things like groceries and utilities.
I am fairly disciplined when I need to save and have basically only spent my money on necessities and very, very occasional nice things like going out to eat with friends - and we're talking places like Taco Bell, not fine dining - other than buying people Christmas presents this year, which obviously only happens once a year, was dependent on how much money I had available to spend, and didn't hit my bank account too too bad anyway.
Both my checking and savings accounts are comfortably over $1000 right now, but I know my mental health would be better if I knew exactly what portion of my income is disposable and what portion I really need to be putting away and reserving for the future, because I struggle a lot with guilt when spending anything on myself (even for things like food) unless I am able to earmark a specific amount from each check as spending money. I had a brief, ill-fated college career (no debt left from that luckily because I left before incurring any) and, like most college students, was perpetually poor while I was there, and I remember becoming reclusive and skipping meals because spending what little money I had on seeing friends almost made me feel sick to do because I would feel so guilty when I had to ask my parents for money. I really need a budget even though I know I have enough money for the place I am right now and probably even have enough for a couple months expenses if I were to move out right now. I just really need to know that for sure to feel like I'm being responsible, and I need to know how to figure that out.
Submitted January 01, 2020 at 07:19PM by throwaway235049876 https://ift.tt/37qVjXa
