Hello all. This forum is pretty impressive. I've seen nothing like it, and I browse online for forums a lot. Anyway, I've read a bit about MMM and have always felt like I needed real advice from people instead of just reading the blog posts. I would gladly appreciate it if you guys could help me. I'm going to follow the stickied topic's guideline on how to make posts easy for people to help me. If it's wrong in any shape or form, please forgive me. Also, I found the spreadsheet provided very intimidating, so I did not do it. I will try to give as much information as possible.
Topic Title: General Help for 27 year-old single male, became engineer with foreign degree (Philippines, I was very blessed to find job given this) 2 years and 4 months of experience
Life Situation:
IRS filing status - single W2, I believe?
number & ages of dependents - None
(state/country of residence, age, etc.) - Houston, TX, living with my mom
Gross Salary/Wages: $65,000
Pre-tax deductions: 401k, HSA, FSA, IRA, insurance, etc. - I am not very knowledgeable about this right now (I know I should be). But I do know I'm only set at default for my 401k (without about $4k in my 401k? that's what the automated machine told me when I called last week).
--update below---
opened up my paystub and saw this:
$73.90 401k
$20.50 dental
$31.60 medical hra2
$2.60 vision
$149 ss tax
$35 medicare
$400 fed inc tax
$2 grp term life
$56 401k match
Other Ordinary Income: Nothing
Qualified Dividends & Long Term Capital Gains: Nothing
Rental Income, Actual Expenses, and Depreciation:
$200 to pay my mom for rent monthly (this actually dropped down from $300 this month, since we found another person to occupy the other room)
$21.70 Planet Fitness - Every month
$120.00 EZ Tag - Every three weeks (I go through the tollway every day, I have to)
$440.00 Tithes - Every month (please don't tell me to eliminate this, I know it's a large sum, but this is strongly part of my beliefs)
$57.66 T-Mobile - Every month
$21.95 Equifax - Every month (looking to get rid of this soon as I heard there's a free way to check credit scores once a year on a certain website)
$128.04 GEICO - Every month (I drive a 2008 Rav4 Limited, that's it)
$200-250 Gas - Every month (I commute 18 miles to get to work, and 18 miles back)
$8.65 Hulu - Every month
plus $400 on food (ROUGH estimate) - as mentioned below
Adjusted Gross Income: Umm if this means how much I get out of my paycheck every 2 weeks, it's $1780. $875 of that is put into my savings account, which sometimes I have to grab money out of since I run out of money from the other half from paying monthly debts (listed above)
Taxes: Federal, state/local, and FICA. - I have no idea what this section is. But I have a low credit score around the 640s
Current expenses: Other than my monthly expenses... I do eat out more than I should. Yes, I should prepare food for myself to save money but I am so tired from work when I get home... I work from 8 to 5, but I get home at 6 because I have a 50 minute commute from work since traffic in Houston is HORRIBLE. My mom does time to time prepare food for me (without me paying for groceries as she does her own thing for food, she cooks for people). This might be a rough estimate on how much I spend on food monthly... but I think it's around $400. There was a month recently that I did go to Smoothie King every day and spent $13 on a large smoothie... that adds up, yes.
Expected ER expenses: Nothing
Assets: Nothing
Liabilities: Nothing, living with mom paying rent, bought my 08 rav 4 used and paid in full.
Specific Question(s):
So currently I'm close to achieving my goal of $10k emergency funds.
After that, what do I do? And yes, please help me arrange what I should do with my 401k.
I do have a goal of having my own home one day, but I'm told it is wiser to find a wife first.
I do want to get into investing, but I have no idea where and how to start. I'm read that vanguard is the best around here. But i'm still not sure if that's what I should do right away after I achieve my $10k emergency fund.
I plan to get Lasik surgery next year, so that will be around $1500.
Basically I just need a good sequence of a plan so I can go from one step to another. I already have step 1 of emergency funds... unless you guys tell me to increase that.
I just honestly don't think I earn enough (I wish i had a wife already to help me out).... but I did read the philosophy of MMM is that's a misconception and I'm just not saving enough.
I wish I had some way of earning passive income... maybe I should do audio transcription at home for $13 dollar an hour and earn some money that way.
Take it easy on me guys... I'm a newbie. A newbie who just honestly in desperate need of your help.
Might have forgotten a few things to say here, in that case I'll just post more info later...
Thanks guys.