How do you save for a home? I'm 29 still make less than six figures and owe 120k for school. Everything feels hand to mouth and I don't know how to expect it to get better

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Focus on maximizing your income first - this may involve hopping jobs once the market gets better

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Marriage. With the combined income it could get you somewhere

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Hmm, *puts down potato chips bag and starts doing push-ups* let me make myself a little more presentable

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Where do you live? Here in Kansas City people make who 70k can buy starter homes with no issue.

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I’m reading the Dave Ramsey book now and it helped me focus in on my debt. Paid of 15k while we were in quarantine. Fiancé and I bought a house already but we plan on paying this off in 5-7 years. Make yourself sweat (I wouldn’t suggest during pandemic. Lol)

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Big west coast city (i.e., SF / LA). Kind of rooted here for family reasons for the medium term though.

Yeah job hopping is likely in the cards. I think the pandemic is making things feel stressful. The new focus on saving for a potential layoff. I guess a better question is how to balance saving for a home or investing when you have debt. Do you just save up to company match and stop additional investing until loans are gone? Save cash for a down payment and just do minimum payment?

Kind of weird to think I won't be able to stay on my hometown though 😔

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Maybe making it *back* to your hometown can be a goal. Cheaper cities when younger = more savings for house/debt repayment = better opportunities for savings = more likely to afford your ideal locale

This sounds like a multiple year plan and isn’t something you are clearing up in 2020. Given that, do not allow lifestyle creep. Take every dollar from bonuses/raises and put it straight to debt/savings. Eat and live like you did in school in 2017.

Your focus should be increasing your income via learning and growing which will lead to promos (aka higher salaries) and better ratings (aka higher bonuses). 99% of side hustles aren’t clearing $120k of debt and dedicating your time to being better at your W2 job is likely more valuable than wasting time on the side making an extra $5k or whatever.

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Where do you live? I’ve found my choice to live in a 2nd tier city has been the best thing for my income growth.

Yes. I lived in Brussels for several years (which is very much a European tier 2 city) and between low CoL and doing well on the exchange rate (Euro was strong at the time) I saved up a ton of money, enough for a down payment on my first place. It's so much easier where things are cheaper.

You need to scope out a new gig to maximize your income. Once you get more salary make sure you’re saving the excess. If you get a 50% increase in salary put at least half of that into savings.

Well if you scroll down on this bowl somebody legit asked this like 4 hours ago

Will give it a look, thanks!

Are you only making the minimum payments on your loans? Also, are the interest rates high? How long have you been paying these loans?

If you are in CA 95K goes quick with taxes & COL. I would advise reevaluating your current life to see if you would be interested in another city that is cheaper or maybe moving home for a bit to save $ (honestly, the world is gonna be weird the next year anyway). Apart from that 1) cut all unnecessary expenses 2) look to grow revenue

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