Hello!
I am 18 years old and planning to move out of my single mom's condo in a couple of years. I would like to start saving up and learning how to handle my money better.
I currently have about 2K to my name; I took out a student loan last year and had half of it given to me as a scholarship. I spent all of the money from the scholarship on food, electricity, mortgage, car repairs and other necessities.
I am a full-time college student, and I have a part-time job (15$/h). I work about 10 hours per week (17hrs during the winter break). I also have a side job (25$/week) that I will get paid for in January.
I set up an appointment with my bank in a couple of weeks, and I contacted my college's financial advisors. I also ordered a credit card to start building up good credit.
I have a couple of questions about money-handling:
- How much money should I have saved up before considering myself ready to move out? What should be my goal? (I imagine 20K, but I have no idea. The wacky housing market is terrifying me)
- Is there a general one-size-fits-all budgeting plan that I could stick to for starters? Example: 50% of the paycheck goes to savings, 45% for living necessities and 5% for spending. Or am I understanding budgeting completely wrong?
- Am I too young for an emergency fund? And if I need one, how big of a percentage of my income should I put into it? The only thing that I could consider an emergency is a sudden and unexpected bill from the veterinary.
Thank you!
Submitted December 11, 2021 at 11:10PM by oneleggedplatypus https://ift.tt/31Nb7X3
