Looking for advice on a few things. For reference, I'm a 34 y/o single male, living in Colorado. My monthly income has been in the $3500 range +/- (net). My debt breakdown is essentially the following: $30k student loans, $26.5K debt to parents, and then recurring monthly life shit (food/rent/etc). I'm trying to make a few tweaks.
1. Grocery Budget for a single dude. I've had my budget set at $400/month + $100/month for eating out. Then my friend said his family of 5 does $425 a month. I hunt and fish, so I typically have meat in the freezer. What a realistic number to aim for here? I do eat out too much.
2. Housing. I don't really know what to do here. I pay $750 for a room in Fort Collins. I'm not sure how to really get much lower than that, but open to suggestions.
3. Healthcare. Any advice here? Thanks to Obama's entitlement program (my fault, I voted for him 2x), my healthcare expenses have skyrocketed, with insane deductibles and nothing is covered. I signed up independently for a BCBS plan for he ruined things that had a $500 deductible for $130/month and everything was covered, including foot massages. Now you're lucky if they covered blood pressure screenings. If I knew then, what I know now!
4. Car expenses savings. What do you guys set aside for car repairs per month? I have an older car, so trying to come up with a yearly budget for maintenance.
Thanks so much!