Tl;Dr I'm being stuck in a lease I can't afford by myself. Do I prioritize saving or paying off debt?
Due to some family drama my dad is moving out of our shared apartment very abruptly and I have to figure out how to pay his $700/mo portion of the rent. We just renewed our lease in June, so I'm stuck here for the next year until I can move into a smaller place. I make $60k/year-- after taxes and deductions I see about $3300 a month. The total rent (including water/sewer/trash) is $1690ish and all other utilities is around $185. After having a major meltdown about having to completely shift my budget, I figure that if I cut all extraneous spending and limit my groceries I have about $300 a month leftover for saving or paying down debt. This isn't including my debt minimum payments, which is $600 (will be up to $750 once the forbearance ends). For debt, I have $6k in credit card/installment debt, $14k in state student loans and $40k in fed student loans. I'm 3 years into PSLF so I'm not worried about paying off the fed loans but everything else I'd like to get paid off ASAP. For savings, I want to start building at least a $1k emergency fund and growing that to cover six months of expenses eventually. I also need to save up for driving lessons (I don't have anyone to teach me for free, re: family drama), a car and eventually a down payment on a condo, which is a long term goal. My question is-- what should I prioritize first, the debt or savings? My thought is going full Dave Ramsey style, as much as I dislike him: saving for 3 months to get to that $1k emergency fund and then chucking almost everything else into the credit card debt. A lot of my cards are at nearly 30% apr and paying just the minimums is making no progress at all. However, I really REALLY need to start getting a start on the driving lessons. I have driving anxiety and I know I'll need to drop major $$$ to get the amount of lessons I think I'll need to get comfortable. The local driving school is charging $1200 for 20 hours of lessons. I ALSO need to save for whatever money I'll need to move next year, which will involve application fee/security deposit and paying for movers. I'm already having a hard time mentally from a number of reasons, and this really makes it all almost unbearable. Having any kind of guidance on this would be beneficial :/
Submitted August 07, 2023 at 12:00AM by Aja12345 https://ift.tt/5YypHT0
