gravenewworld said:
That leaves $820 minus what ever I have to pay off on my credit card.
This part of your budget is critical because the way interest is calculated on credit card debt should be illegal but somehow isn't. When you get financing on a car or a house, interest is usually compounded on a monthly or biweekly basis. Credit cards are compounded daily. When you pay more than the minimum on a mortgage or car payment, the extra you throw in goes towards paying the principle amount of the loan, which lowers the amount of interest charged in the next compounding period. Credit cards are the opposite, that extra money goes towards paying the
interest, and the principle is not paid at all until the entire amount of interest is paid first. Car and house loans have (somewhat) fixed interest rates, so the agreed amount of 5% on a car loan is what the interest is for the entire duration of the loan, or having something like 10 year fixed on a mortgage means the interest is fixed at that rate for 10 years. Credit cards have no locked in rates and can be arbitrarily raised at any given time. You can sign up for a card at 20% interest and they're allowed to jack it up to 30% with no warning or reason.
Find a way to refinance. Talk to a debt consolidation company, try to get a bank loan, try to borrow money from your parents if you need to. Get out of credit card as soon as possible, even if that means you eat nothing but rice for the next couple of months.
Usually need to fill up 1.5 tanks of gas per week so that is 6 tanks x 13 gallons x $3.05=$240 per month on gasoline.
Would it be possible to move closer to work without spending significantly more on rent?
That leaves around $500 a month for food. If I spent all that on food that would be about $15 per day/$5 per meal. That assumes I spend $0 on entertainment every month also.
That's an incredible amount of money to be spending on food. I'm not sure what the difference in PPP is between our two cities, but where I live that would be enough to eat t-bone steak for every meal. My own food expenses are around $100 per month and I think I eat fairly well. I eat toast with peanut butter or jam in the morning, I usually don't eat lunch but sometimes I bring leftovers from the previous night, and my supper is something simple like poached eggs on toast, macaroni and cheese, or chili. Milk is my biggest food expense.
Evo said:
If the cost for electricty is less than for gas or oil (it is much cheaper where I live), he could save a lot by going electric. Also, it would allow heating each room depending on it's use, which could also help cut down.
Localizing the heat really helps. My bedroom has about 500W worth of stuff running, and it keeps this room at least 10C warmer than my kitchen which has nothing running. There's no sense in heating the entire apartment when you're the only person there. Keep an electric heater in the room where you spend the most time, and just heat that one room, and only when you're there. You can get a 1500W heater from Home Depot for $20.Get a second job too. I work at McDonalds on weekends; it's projected to bring in an extra $9,000 per year
edit:
turbo-1 said:
Anybody with a regular income should establish a budget (NO credit cards)
I would disagree with this part because using the card builds your credit rating. It's free to use as long as you pay the entire thing on time. It should be used under the assumption that you currently have enough money in your bank account at that time to pay the entire balance on the card. Most people don't think of it like that, but they probably should.
There was one month when the payment dates were screwy and somehow I ended up underpaying the balance by about $50 for a period of three days. The bill was something like 500, I paid 450, then a few days later I paid the remainder. Over the course of 3 days, at 20% annual interest, compounded daily, Visa found a way to charge $12 in interest. If you scale that rate over the course of a year, it's pretty close to 3000% interest.
$12 interest / $50 principle / 3 days * 365 days per year = 29.2, or 2920% yearly interest. Pay that sucker off!
