That’s great. Is there any expenses you can cut until then to help speed up that process? I’m thinking maybe cut back the haircut to every 2 months, pause the YouTube red? I know it’s small things but every dollar counts with high interest debt

Oh I know. I felt embarrassed even typing it out. That's almost another rent payment for me. I'm currently in the process of eliminating all of my debt by July. I know this is a killer for me.

Thanks for that input. That makes total sense. I would imagine burnout after a month or two. Will look into including this on the budget list.

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Yeah I'm not a fan of it.

I filled it out perfectly a few years ago so that my wife and I got like $100 back or something like that (we wanted to have the least amount given as a refund) then the next year I was afraid it wouldn't take into account our bonuses and I redid it. Now we get a much larger refund than I want, but I really don't want to fill it out again.

There probably isn't a lot that you can cut there. There's a couple of subscriptions, and you can probably get the grocery bill down a little bit. The real killer for your situation is the debt payments. You should have around $700 extra now, based on what you listed. Get the debt paid off, and you'll have $1400-1500 extra each month.

I'd list out your loan/credit card debts from highest interest rate to lowest. Make the minimum payments on all of them except for the one with the highest rate. Put all your extra money towards that debt. Repeat that monthly until it's paid off, then move on to the next highest rate. Do that until the debts are all paid off. That will save you the most money in terms of interest paid.

>focused on paying off debt right now so the wife and I have cut out "fun" money until then

That's fair, but those additional debt payments should added as a line item as well. I would recommend caution in completely removing 'fun' money from your budget as it makes it difficult to follow your budget. One compromise can easily snowball to the point a budget gets ignored outright. Instead of eliminating consider leaving yourself $50 for a date night to allow the flexibility.

418kwh is less than a kilowatt of load around the clock. Pretty common. A kilowatt is equivalent to a small space heater.

You state you are rarely home. Do you unplug your devices? Many draw power even when turned off. TV's smart home devices, Wi-Fi, coffee makers, etc.

Absolutely. My plan is to have it paid off in full by July.

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Thanks. I'll review my water bills and check for any discrepancies.

I'm focused on paying off debt right now so the wife and I have cut out "fun" money until then. I've halted savings contribution until then. Plan on having it paid off completely by July.

Great. That debt should be your #1 priority right now

The amounts mostly seem okay, except water. I know this is highly variable by region, but I pay about $50 a quarter in a 2k sq ft home with 3 occupants, nowhere near 75 a month.

Beyond that, I ascribe to the 0 budget mentality. I would recommend adding lines for savings (tax advantaged retirement accounts being the first priority after funding your emergency savings and paying down your high-interest debt) as well as entertainment/travel/leisure/etc.

The entertainment/etc. lines would be rollover. Unused money from one month would go in to an account specific for this/these purposes and any spending on said category should never exceed the rolled over budget. It requires that you pre-fund any trips or leisure activities, avoiding the possibility of funding them at 24.99% annual interest rates.

With this philosophy, your expenditures should equal $3,605. You do lose flexibility, and some will advocate against. You can also create a 'slip' category in there of 5% of your income. This covers overruns in any critical category and any remaining funds here should go in to paying down debt or savings at the close of the month.

About $7000 in debt.

The interest rate ranges from 0 to 27% or so. I have about $7000 total and plan on having it paid off completely by July.

& you'll also make less than avg $ in most places outside of NYC. It's a double edged sword depending on OP's profession.

Understandable. I plan on having my debt completely paid off by July. That extra money will come in handy. Thanks for the subreddit tip!

If you want to make sure rent money for the next few months is taken care of, you can set up a treasurydirect account and buy some short term t-bills. It normally pays better interest than savings account with under 100k, and the money is taken out immediately and comes back with interest at the end of the specified period. Paying your landlord or landlady a few months worth of rent is not optimal

How much dent do you have and what’s the interest rate on it?

How much debt do you have?

I get it cut once a month. It varies from $50 to $60.

Well, groceries is the main area you can control. The rest is just small rounding errors effectively. You may be able to cut some of that out but it won't be meaningful. Trimming groceries is likely the only place that you can make meaningful cuts.

try /r/EatCheapAndHealthy

Does the haircut happen every month or is that just an example of this month’s?

She is not able to work full time at the moment but does side work for small income Monthly. We tend not to budget it since it is sporadic.