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Step 1: stop spending. Step 2: pay off debt. You're working at Deloitte, surely you can figure this out
Mr Money Mustache. Dude has an amazing attitude to money and life.
Generally this is habitual and often hard to see, but when the light bulb goes on, it will change your life.
1. Understand clearly that carrying credit card balances and loan balances is the result of supplementing your income with debt. You will lose.
2. Budget = spending PLAN. Emphasis on plan because it happens before you spend. (Not a "tracker") There are general rules of thumb to divide 100% of your net income across your spend categories e.g. Housing should be <30% of net income. List categories, find these percentages, and plan what you should be spending.
3. Compare what you are spending per category to what you should be spending. Mind blown? This may be where some unfucking is due.
4. Adjust lifestyle to fall within spend plan guidance and you will always have money
5. Rules: All surplus in each spend category goes to savings/investing and NOT your new BMW payment or equivalent
Debt destruction
1. Until debt is gone, surplus (item 5) goes to eliminate debt
2. Prioritize debts by size not interest rate
a. Pay minimum payments on larger balances
b. Pay ALL surplus cash on smallest balance to eliminate is ASAP
c. Upon completion, refocus ALL surplus to next smallest balance and continue until debt is gone
I paid off about 20k to two sources after working for a year. After putting about 10-12% into my 401k, I would get about $1600 per paycheck (so about two paychecks a month). I paid $1500-2000 at least once a month with a few exceptions. Rent took up about $700 per month, and I still was able to save around $1k. So your goal is definitely attainable.
I will say I was pretty miserable for this first year because I felt like my existence was to pay off loans and barely spent any money for travel / fun activities. I wouldn't recommend being as aggressive so you can still enjoy the money you're earning. Good luck!
Ramsey, also been enjoying budget girl on Youtube
Hahha I love how I have been living the suggested lifestyles above (every last tip) for two plus years while putting my spouse through law school, paying off my grad school loans, and paying off our credit card debt. Yes, it can get bleak, oppressive, and depressing, but it will hopefully one day be over. OP- one thing I like about the Learn Vest method is that it helps you budget in small things that bring you great pleasure (like maybe a $7 bouquet of flowers every now and then). I hope that we will both be home-free sometime soon- good luck!
Also, if you are not married yet, take this time to reflect in your relationship with money so that when you meet that special person, you can have a high quality, mature, proactive personal finance convo. We're pretty compatible on the financial front, but there are def areas where we differ and that has lead to us accumulating some debt that I would have preferred we avoided and vice versa. This is hard enough single, let alone married with another human with their own desires. Good luck!
I will teach you to be rich by Ramit Sethi helped me get rid of 20K in credit card debt(bad spending habits) and put away 3 months worth of expenses in savings in a little less than 2 years
Dave Ramsey.
$30k consumer debt is pretty bad assuming non health/can't work issues so the obv answer is "learn to budget." Thankfully for you, 30k in 2 years at big 4 should be easily doable even if you are an associate. Besides the obv "budget" answer some quick wins are: Stop flying for vacations esp if you aren't using points. Pregame before you go out with friends with Trader Joe's beer/wine. Sell your junk. But chicken in bulk and cook it whenever you aren't traveling. Cook a bunch of freezable stuff so next time you don't want to cook and justify a cheap takeout, all you have to do is turn on the oven. When you do go out for dinner, don't drink alcohol. Cut cable and go to sling/Netflix with just internet service. Stop gym membership and buy $20 resistance bands. Don't buy books, use a library. If you travel a lot, increase your auto insurance deductible and make sure you aren't paying to keep your residence cool while you are away.
Move in w ur parents for a year and throw what would have been your rent money at the loan
OP- over the years, I have also read a lot of good personal finance books from the library. Since this can really be an art as much as it is a science, I have found that reading multiple authors on the topic has given me a strong foundation. Alexa Von Tobel, Finish Rich Serries, Rich Dad Poor Dad, and Suze Orman have been good starter books. Yes, people, I know that these are plebe books, but I read them when I was 22. To save money, I would stay in and read personal finance books. Haha Went one whole year in Manhattan with zero credit card debt while my rent was 65% of my take home pay. Good luck!
I am so sincerely appreciative of all of the well thought out and extremely explanatory advice above! You all are wonderful. I am going to begin by looking into some of the above literature, making a budget/plan, and implementing k1's debt destruction. I will update you guys in a few months on where I stand. Thank you!
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