Hello!
Longtime lurker, first-time poster!
I'm a 23F, who is relatively good at saving, although I feel like with my money just sitting in my account that I'm missing on opportunities to increase my net worth overall. I currently live in California where living expenses and home prices are continuing to skyrocket, and I would ideally like to buy a home within the next few years if at all possible. I'm really just looking for any advice on what the best route to get there would be, and if there is anything that I'm currently doing that is maybe not the best for my future.
Here's a brief breakdown of my current situation:
- My estimated salary before taxes is around $60,000/yr, and I get paid monthly around the 15th.
- Total Networth (savings + fun spending stash + checkings account + retirement accounts) is roughly $20396, with $8006 of that in my savings account to cover six months of expenses if anything were to happen (which I'm trying to get to $10,000 because I'm a worrywart and would rather over save a bit than not have enough).
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My monthly living expenses are roughly $1,000/mo as follows, and are all on automated payments from my checkings account:
- $700/mo for rent (utilities included) until July, and then it'll go up to $800ish after July.
- $25/mo for a gardener (required per lease agreement)
- $14.99/mo for Netflix
- $9.99/mo for Spotify
- $65/mo for car insurance
- $57.50/mo for pet insurance
- $2.99/mo for iCloud storage
- $68/mo for health, vision, and dental insurance taken out of my paycheck
- Wifi and phone bill are both covered by my employer due to working from home, which will continue as my company is now fully remote with no plans to go back into an office.
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I allocate $400/mo for food (groceries + dog food + eating out because I can be lazy), but I don't usually use up that full amount as my roommate and I split groceries and try to minimize eating out as much as possible.
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Bachelor's degree with no student loan debt and my car is fully paid off with around 104,000 miles on it.
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I have three credit cards, all of which I pay off right when I get my paycheck to help build my credit which is currently around 750 due to the short length that my lines of credit have been open.
- Capital One - $3500 limit which I keep for emergencies only, and because it's my highest limit and longest line of credit although it offers no cashback or perks.
- Wells Fargo - $1500 limit, with a 1% cash back on gas and groceries so I solely use it for that
- BoA - $3000 limit, with a 3% cashback on online purchases as I primarily buy any household items, extra things, etc. on Amazon, but I'm also able to change where my cashback goes per month if I expect that I'll be spending more on one category than another.
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I have a 401k with a 4% company match through my job and a Roth IRA through Schwab that I set up right when I graduated from college. My current pay distribution is 5% to my 401k to take advantage of my company match, and 10% to my Roth IRA (which I am considering raising to max out my Roth IRA).
- 401k currently has $2537
- Roth IRA currently has $7265
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Currently, I have my direct deposit split with 10% to my Roth IRA, 25% to my safety blanket, and 65% to my checkings account to pay bills and pay off my credit cards.
Up until this point, I felt like I was doing relatively good considering that I mainly just read your reddit posts, but I really feel like I'm at a loss for what I'm supposed to do next from here to continue to grow my money after everything is said and done. The savings part isn't too difficult as I have extremely inexpensive rent and living expenses for the area, but every time I try to determine how long it will take me to purely save enough to get a down payment on a home in the area I just feel like it keeps getting more and more out of reach if I just continue saving with the rate that inflation is going. Honestly, purchasing a home or a condo isn't even the end-all goal, I just like to have a set goal that I'm working towards but I would really just like to know if there's anything else that I should be doing to help grow my wealth. At this rate, what's my next step?? Index funds?? Mutual funds??? HELP PLS! THSNKS.
Submitted March 30, 2021 at 07:59PM by Ambitious_Rain_ https://ift.tt/3m79kSq
