I was born at 5:34 in the morning. 32 years later, I feel I have the same financial capabilities that I did on day one. My home state, Kansas, never really afforded me many opportunities to make a lot of money. I eked out a living doing IT work, but there wasn't much demand for my expertise anywhere near a 500 mile radius of my house.
One day, after half a year of planning, I loaded up my Jeep with everything I owned, and drove my cat and I 1500 miles away from home. I found a job with more pay than I'd ever had before. Six months later, and I got promoted, so now I'm at as high a salary as I'd ever dreamed of before.
For many of you, this ultra-high salary won't sound like much. It's $48k a year. But for a single guy in his 30s with no children, it's a bucketload. Or it should be. Yet somehow, I'm not managing to retain any money. I'm living paycheck to paycheck. Some of that is because I had/have a lot of household items to replace (I've been in my new city less than a year). A lot of it is because I just don't do a fantastic job with money. I don't understand it.
Here's a breakdown of where I'm at:
I have about 50k in student loans (no monthly payment yet, that's coming very soon)
I am also paying 150 a month for tuition separate from the student loans (it's about 3k total, but at 0% interest)
I have about 1k of credit card debt currently. I have always paid off my credit cards in full, so I never end up with interest.
I pay 650 in rent.
I pay 100 for my cell phone.
FIOS Internet and TV comes to about 125.
Public transportation is 70 a month.
Anything that isn't a fixed expense, I have no solid numbers to give you. Groceries, dining out, clothing, hair cuts, etc, I have no idea. I picked up YNAB to try and help track my costs here. The last few months have had some very large ticket items show up - HDTV, bed, TV stand, PS4, book stand, a rug, well, I won't keep naming things, but imagine you moved with almost nothing at 30 something. That's what I did, and I went a bit wild getting things. I still have things to get, but I've put myself on a spending freeze until I sort this out.
Anyway, that's my situation. I don't know that I have a question, but I'd love to hear comments.
-Vertigo
There is no Jeep payment anymore, I sold it after I got a job and found that public transportation works well for getting back and forth.
I just started my 401k, 6% of my income goes into that (the max that my company does matching for).
I only get paid twice a month, if that makes any difference.