This will probably be longer than needed, but here it goes. I'm a single 29 year old, with an ok salary putting me in the 25% bracket making about $55K, living in Western New York State. I freelance on the side occasionally to bring in extra in income, but not much. I have no credit card debt. I have about $44K in student loan debt at 4.5%. I have about $7500 in student loan debt at 7% that I'm working on paying off first. I graduated about 6 years ago with $60K total.
Here's my current expenses per month:
$275/month rent (my half, split with roommate. 2500sq. ft house.)
$200 utilities (my half, gas, electric, internet, split with roommate)
$425 student loans (about 50/50 principal and interest)
$91 insurance
$325 car (I'll explain)
$25 gas
$250 food (I'm pretty strict on what I eat. I don't eat out. I don't snack. Close to nothing processed.)
$75 cell (I cannot get rid of this, since I develop apps)
About $1500 total per month
Up until last year, I paid little attention to saving. I was more worried about paying my expenses. After a promotion, it put me in a much better situation. Here's what I'm currently saving per month:
$370 401K (employer matches $160)
$200 in a savings with basically no interest
$100 in a ROTH IRA
$200 which sits in a brokerage account because I don't know what to do with it.
2x a year, an extra $1000 is put into the 401K from a bonus.
My balanaces are about:
$22K,000 in a 401K
$1,600 in ROTH IRA
$2,000 in brokerage, with $1,000 invested in a Schwab TIPS ETF
$3,500 in a savings account
And here's where I'm going to get the flack. I made some poor decisions after getting my job right after college. I purchased a used car for $12K at 18.9%. Yeah. In 2010 I rolled the balance ($6K) into a new car lease, which I have about a year remaining. It's a 2010 Honda Insight, the Honda version of the Prius, which I'll have the option of purchasing at the end of the lease for $12K. I'll have only about 20,000 miles on it at that time. I put on about 5,500 miles per year, with a few trips here and there. That could probably be reduced greatly if I walked or biked to work, but winters are pretty rough here and there's literally no way to walk it. Since I'm stuck in the lease, should I try to sell the leased car? With my current savings, I really don't have enough to purchase a beater to get around in, and have at least a month or two saved up to cover an emergency.
So, with my situation outlined, my main goal for getting my ducks in order aside from retiring at a decent age, is that I will be moving out west to Seattle, for reasons I don't want to get into. But, I need to get myself on a better plan, since my expenses are going to be much higher. If it takes a year or two to do that, I'm ok with that. But, I honestly don't know where to begin. I've started reading through all these forums (with some incredible support and advice) trying to find my way.
So, my main questions are these:
1) I don't know if the student loan debt at 4.5% is okay to pay as I currently am for the next 15 years or so?
2) Should I sell the remainder of my car lease? And buy a used car? If moving to a location with public transportation, I won't need it.
3) Where should I be investing my money? Or should it be going towards student loans? And how much should I be saving?