Paycheck 1

Well guys this is the official kick off of my attempt at financial responsibility. This post will have some basic information about me as well as my income and how it will be broken down.

First of all I would like to say that I am very fortunate in my living situation. I am 27 years old and have gone back to school to finish up my Bachelor's Degree in Management. I have been in retail management for the past 5 years selling electronics and cellular phones. In march of 2008 I decided that I no longer wanted to work the 55+ hour weeks for $32,000 a year and that I would head back to school.

I moved back in with my parents and am going to class full time and will be graduating in December of 2009. My parents are great people and are helping me out by not charging me rent while I am continuing my education. This really helps me keep costs down and focus on my studies. I lost my job back in January and just started working again at the end of April, those three months of looking for a job that would work around my school schedule were not easy and I accumulated some credit card debt during that time.

My debt is as follows:
Credit Cards: $2460.07
Student Loans: Around $25500 (It will probably be at about $30000 when I graduate)

As I said before I am ignoring the student loan debt until after I graduate and focusing on eliminating the credit card debt with 2/10Th's of my income.

Here is my income for this period which includes a 2 week paycheck of $581.56 take home (which is what I will be using for calculations) and my state income tax return of $85. For a grand total of $666.56 and will be broken down as follows.

Savings 1/10Th: $66.66
Debt 2/10Th's: $133.31
Living 7/10Th's: $466.59

Because I don't have to pay rent or utilities my living budget is probably much more than I will need, that being the case any left over money at the end of each pay period will be set aside to pay for emergencies like car problems or medical issues. Once this amount that is put aside reaches $500 then any additional monies that is left will be used to further pay down debt.

Please Post any questions or comments and I will try to answer as many as I can.