Income: Between $30,000 and $31,500 per year after taxes and various other deductions (health insurance, 403B, etc.) Supposedly around $38,000 or so before taxes, but I'm not certain. Income comes from two sources. Primary source is my teaching job. That's pretty much consistent. I also make a little scratch with my music gig that happens one or two weekends out of the month.
Basically, I'm bringing in between 2,500 to 2,700 per month depending on furloughs, gigs, etc. For the next few months, it looks like it'll be around 2,550 or so.
Expenses:
Mortgage: $130,301.68. 2400 square feet out in the middle of the country. Far too big for little old me. Refinanced this past March to get my payments down from 1100 per month to 860 per month (4.25 interest rate).
Car Loan: $2,928.
"Credit card": $200. I put this in quotation marks because that was the only way I could afford the repairs on my now defunct old Honda. The shop said they offered credit through some GE Financing thing. I have another three months before the interest kicks in. Minimum payments are only $25, but I've been putting around $100 to $125 on it to get rid of it as quickly as possible.
Gym Membership: $25 per month. Just cancelled it two days ago. November's payment will be my last one.
Netflix: $8 per month. Will most likely end up canceling this as well. I hardly ever use it.
Internet service: $70 per month.
Electricity: Anywhere between $85 or so in the spring and fall to $180 or so in the summer to upwards of $250 or even $300 in the winter. I live in the south, so our houses probably aren't built to heat as efficiently as some of the northern houses are.
Student Loans: $4,360.28. Monthly payment is $83.
Garbage: $21 per month.
Food: Somewhere around $600 per month.
Gas: Around $200 per month
Car Insurance: $328 per month
Assets:
Retirement Acct. through Lincoln Financial: $17,969.46
That's about the long and short of it, as far as I know.
Knowns:
1. Got to obliterate that car loan. I didn't even like getting it, so the sooner I'm rid of it, the happier I'll be. Same goes for the credit card and Netflix. Knocking out the car loan should help the insurance premiums. Normally, I only just use liability because I try not to drive like a damn fool.
2. Need to obliterate that student loan debt at some point, too.
3. Food expenditures are insane. Cutting down on beer and eating out should go a long way to fix this.
4. I can probably cut down fuel expenditures, too.
Unknowns:
1. Got to cut down on my heating costs. My heating is electric. Apparently I don't have a heat pump. At least, that's what the one guy told me. This was the reason given as to why it takes so much juice to heat my home. I've noticed that some rooms will get hot while others will be ice cold. Have no idea why.
2. Am planning on setting up a Vanguard Index fund. Someone told me that I have to put a certain amount into my Lincoln account first before I do that. Going to meet with my school's financial advisor next week to see what's up with that. Would be useful to know how much I need to put into the Vanguard fund to start out with. May just look that up on my own this weekend.
3. Could use some thoughts on my plan of attack. Do I focus on the loans or the index fund? As it is, I'm considering doing both, but emphasizing the loans so that I can free up more cash to put into the fund.
Thanks for the input. Let me know if more info is needed. I know that it's a bit of a mess, but you've got to start somewhere, right?