I'm pretty new to the whole "financial planning" thing. I grew up with parents who, God love 'em, didn't think ahead, didn't plan well, and were (and still are) living paycheck to paycheck. I've been working through financial issues on my own, and I think I'm doing pretty well.
I've paid off my personal student loan, and am working on paying my parents back for a large loan that they took out for me. I'm working on saving some every month-- not as much as I like, but it's a start. Right now my expenses are roughly $1600/mo, which includes about $100 going into savings. I've got about $1700 socked away, and I'm thinking of investing about $1000 of it.
Questions are:
- Should I pay off my debt to my parents first? I consider it as real and binding as any bank debt, but I'm sort of planning on giving them my tax return for the next four years or so, which would cover both principle and interest for the loan they took.
- Should I save more before starting to invest?
- If I should start investing now... how? What would be a good place to start?
Thanks in advance for your input!