Topic: Which fruit is low hanging, and which do I focus on first?
I am a long time lurker (almost a full year of it!) and have been trying to get things in order. No excuses! (And I am ready for face punching!) BUT, please understand our life has been a LITTLE chaotic which leads to REASONS - not EXCUSES of why we are in the current situation. At this time I am just looking for advice on what to focus on first. Thank you all in advance!
Life Situation: My Wife (29) and also Myself (29) - Married filing Jointly. No dependents but planning on it. Living in a Mid Atlantic state in the United States (Moderate sized city of less than 500k people)
Gross Salary/Wages: CURRENT - Me: Day Job in Financial Services - 41k Annual (honestly - underpaid for my abilities and the role ... but ok benefits and extremely low stress for the field) / Night Job - 6k to 12k annual. Will be 6k this year. Side hustle - Writing Marketing Services ... about 3-4k last year, could get up to 5-6k this year NET. Probably could grow a little more, but that is close to the max. My Wife WAS in a position making 46k annually. Medical reasons forced her to retire and she may go back, but not planning on it within the next 12 months... Will depend upon release from Dr's before we risk it.
Pre-tax deductions: 401k - only throwing $100 per biweekly period (currently) - no incentive as low match (25% per dollar on first $3k none after that) / put just over $1k in Traditional IRA annually.
Other Ordinary Income: Just the side hustle writing business ... it should continue to grow modestly. Low stress, but not much upside. Great for on the side and when I want to.
Current expenses: MOST of this is due to two things. Student Loan Debt and Autos. We live in an area where there is lake effect snow (not complaining just pointing out). So while we will consider getting rid of one car and biking, we have roughly 5 months of winter. Without giving out full details, this city has been in the top three in US Snowfall in three of the last five years (or so).
Monthly Expenses:
Cars - Combined ($275 and $355)
Credit Card Balance (16k) All on 0% APR's and tearing through them. Have them down from about 24k from January 2015. (almost all of that except maybe 500-1,000 was due to the medical bills...) Current min payment approx $180/$190 month.
Combined student loans = (859) (Comes from all of the combined from my wife and I, will focus on taking this out after CC's)
Monthly Gas: Roughly $75 - I work 7 miles to the west of where I live, then the night job is about 13 miles east of where I live ...
Monthly Utilities (Gas, Water, Electric, Internet) - all add up to about $150-$160 ... no cable :)
Phone - Taken care of by current job
Car insurance - $70.
Food $150-$200 (most months $150, sometimes we stock up on true deals) - this includes basic toiletries
No mortgage, currently renting.
Assets: No significant assets other than .. Wife has 11k in retirement, I only have about $5k in combined 401k and IRA.
I know I went off of the guide to post these a bit, but while I am absolutely open to ANY points of view and tips ... I am looking for some help on what to tackle first. Here's what makes the case study FUN. These are the important factors.
1) I have accepted a position at the part time job, the contract starts with the new school year (Pay is 62k annually, for only 38 weeks of service). The benefits will also be tremendous in both retirement and medical. Medically this will save us specifically on copays and prescriptions... and with retirement they will match *just under* 2 to 1 for up to
2) Because we are taking that job, we will move close as possible to there. I can possibly decrease rent costs ($650), but definitely commuting costs and maybe sell one of the cars at that time.
3) Our student loans are killing us. I realize that we took them out and we will pay them off, but at rates of 6-7%, it's still too high. I want to refinance them down a few percent because I will have a higher income and my credit score has gone up tremendously since I took them out years ago.
4) Seeing as the new job only requires 38 work weeks per year then summers off, I will be open to doing manual labor for the next few years to get cash and put a major dent in debt! (Maybe landscaping? I'm decently athletic - not afraid of sweating or a hard days work).
5) Wife's father is a master carpenter and master builder. As soon as we are cleared by bank to move, we will put a lot of work into a depressed house and will (hopefully) get a lot of equity. Possibly refinancing equity that we will build with home equity loan of only a couple percent, and then using that to pay off higher balance private debt. (This step may take another year or two)
6) With the side writing / marketing business AND the raise of the new job... I project we could have ALL credit card debt eliminated within one calendar year. Both cars will be fully paid for (including this new income) within one calendar year ... but if not then definitely by Summer 2017.
7) As you can see, we both were able to find employment, but with high student loans the first few years out and not a great job landscape, we haven't made it very far into growing our mustaches.... I won't blame it on the economy, but it was humbling to have a masters degree and be working a 3rd shift hotel job at $8 / hour for the first two years I graduated while searching for jobs that had (gasp) benefits during the day...
With all of these ideas in play, I have a few questions:
A) Any order I should be following with above plans? (I don't want to refinance loans then go try to get a house because of a credit score hit or vice versa)
B) Am I over (under) thinking any of these things?
C) Am I missing anything that is right in front of my face?
D) Are there any reasons you want to punch me in the face?
Long story short, I am MORE than willing to make changes. As you can see now, paying off debt is the focus. The medical bills really hit us hard, but they will only be a hiccup and will be gone within the year... Any Ideas / thoughts / comments / etc will truly help. AND I would love to hear (and would be significantly grateful) for any help / suggestions / ideas / etc.
Thank you much in advance for your consideration.