Ok My 2 cents, the parts in bold have been quoted;
Not sure what all I can include to give you guys the best picture of my finances but here goes. I am 27, married, with a 2 year old.
Monthly bills
Rent 715 fair enough
Storage unit 45, Nah, you don't need it. Sell up the stuff. The "stuff" is costing you cash.
Car insurance 70 Fair enough, but look at different insurers.
Cell plan 160 Insane. Way Way too high. Look at having one phone, or NONE. Yes, people survived quite fine without mobiles. $50 should be enough.
Life insurance 10 Seems fairly cheap.
Electric 150 Ouch, high. Try to use less energy. Hey, without that extra mobile to charge, you probably will be able to get this one down easily. At least to $120.
Internet 30 That is ok I guess, but realize that Internet is a luxury.
Hulu 8 Nope, drop it!
Netflix 8 No, drop it. I mean you are paying more for TV than your life insurance, priorities?
Total ~1370 New total $995.
Revolving Totals and monthly minimums:
Student loan 1 - 1240 - 50/mo Not educated enough to comment, so I won't. (Non US)
student loan 2 - 10823 - 115/mo Not educated enough to comment, so I won't. (Non US)
Medical payment plan - 5700 - 50/mo Not educated enough to comment, so I won't. (Non US)
dept store - 150 - 25/mo Seriously, what is this all about? I'm clueless on why you would need this.
credit card 1 - 1200 - 25 Ok, CC? Pay it off chop it up.
credit card 2 - 600 - 15 Pay it off, chop it up.
car loan + personal loan - ~2000 - 150 Really? Does this mean you have 3 CC's and a Car loan & a personal loan? Have you ever just saved up for something and waited, compromising on 'perfect' and getting what is affordable? It's actually really, really cool and great to get into. If you haven't lived like this before, you might find that it actually is quite nice.
Total ~21000 - 430/mo Boy, you got yourself into quite a bit of debt. I wonder if some of that "stuff" you are stashing away may be able to pay some of it off for you.
monthly budgets:
Groceries 400 If this was in Australia, that total would be awesome. I don't personally think it is too much, eat well, live long.
Medicine 10 Yep, children's panadol and the like can easily add up to $10 a month.
gas 60 Fuel for car. Fair enough, that is quite low in my eyes.
laundry 20 Unsure what this is for, because groceries should cover washing powder.
total 490
net income after pre-tax deductions and taxes:
me 2052
wife 358 (stay at home mom mostly)
total 2410
This leaves us with about 130 of buffer money. No savings or anything. We usually eat up that buffer money in consumables like diaper wipes and every day stuff that isn't budgeted. Every time I hear from a friend or read that anyone making 50k/yr should have no issues, I feel ashamed. According to payscale, I am in the 80th percentile in terms of salary for my education and experience. We are at a loss. Any advice at all would be great. Thanks :)
Ok, firstly buy some kitchen cloth wipes that are on a roll, and wash them with the nappies. No cloth nappies? Why not start. I'm guessing there are quite a few holes in your budget too. Do you have to pay for water? Do you pay for registration? Clothing? Haircuts? Presents? These may be causing a cost blow out and making it difficult to get on top of that debt mountain and make it FLAT as a tack. I'd suggest keeping a register of everything you spend your money on for a month or two.
Maybe those games and consoles will go up in value. I doubt it very, very much, kind of like a Video player now being worth a pretty penny. The technology is dated, old and is like running Windows 95 on a computer. I loved Windows 95, but I'm not running it because of nostalgia. Actually I'm not running it at all, I still have a disk somewhere I should fling, I doubt it has monetary value. Anyway, I digress. If they are presently worth anything, sell them. They will make you more money this way than any other. Because, you will be saving a huge amount over the terms of your debt in interest alone for every $100 you can pay today.
So there are my two cents for what they are worth. But personally, if I were in that much debt it would be NO mobile phones, no TV, no extra expenses at all that weren't essential to life, yes, that means no internet connection, no nights out, no eating out, ect, ect. Talk to your spouse about minimizing your expenses to a level that you are both comfortable about. That also means talking about the level of debt you are comfortable with too.... for me & my hubby that number is 0.